Plant Form: Herb Flower Color: green, yellow, brown Flower Arrangement: Spike Leaf Type: Simple Leaf Arrangement: Opposite Monocot/Dicot: Dicot

Annual, much like nos. 10 [Plantago elongata Pursh] and 11 [Plantago pusilla Nutt.], fibrous-rooted or seldom with an evident slender taproot; lvs linear, 3-10 cm, often with a few slender salient teeth; scapes several, to 10 cm; spikes slender, 2-6 cm, loosely fld; bracts ovate, broadly scarious-margined, commonly longer than the broadly rounded sep, only obscurely swollen at base; cor-lobes less than 1 mm, usually spreading in fr; stamens 2; fr slenderly ovoid, longer than the bracts and commonly nearly twice as long as the cal; seeds mostly 10-25, black, angular, coarsely pitted, 0.5-0.8 mm; 2n=12. A weed of fields and waste places; se. U.S., n. to Va. and Mo., and rarely adventive n. to N.Y.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.