Wetland Plants and Plant Communities of Minnesota and Wisconsin

BLUE VERVAIN

(Verbena hastata L.)


Blue vervain

VERVAIN FAMILY (Verbenaceae)

IND. STATUS: FACW+

FIELD CHARACTERISTICS: A perennial herb up to 150 cm. tall. The opposite stem leaves are lance-shaped to narrowly ovate and coarsely serrated. Bright blue flowers are overlapping and packed into a number of dense spikes which form a panicle at the end of the 4-sided, erect stem. In bloom from July to August.

ECOLOGICAL NOTES: Blue vervain is common in sedge meadows, wet to wet-mesic prairies, and fresh (wet) meadows. It has also proven to be a colonizer of exposed, moist soils of wetland mitigation sites.

SOURCE: Gleason and Cronquist (1991); Swink and Wilhelm (1994).


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