Hexastylis virginica

Rhizomes: internodes short, leaves crowded at rhizome apex. Leaf blade variegate or not, cordate, subcordate, or subreniform. Flowers: calyx tube cylindric to narrowly cylindric-urceolate, sometimes with prominent transverse ridge just below sinuses, 8-15 × 6-12 mm, inner surface with high reticulations, lobes erect or weakly spreading, 2-4 × 7-9 mm, adaxially puberulent; stamen connective not extending beyond pollen sacs; ovary ca. 1/3-inferior; ovules 8 per locule; styles notched at apex. 2 n = 26.

Flowering spring (Apr-Jun). Deciduous and mixed deciduous-conifer forests; 0-700 m; Ky., Md., N.C., Tenn., Va., W.Va.

Plants of Hexastylis virginica with small, cylindric-urceolate calices have been treated as a distinct species, H . memmingeri . The two calyx types are often found in the same population, however, so H . memmingeri seems unworthy of taxonomic recognition at any rank.

Prior to the study by H. L. Blomquist (1957), many botanists interpreted Hexastylis virginica in a very broad sense, so old herbarium specimens of many other species of Hexastylis are often annotated as H . virginica .

The Cherokee used Hexastylis virginica medicinally to stop blood from passing (D. E. Moerman 1986, as Asarum virginicum ).

Rhizome short and freely branched; lvs cordate-orbicular, 5-10 cm, commonly broadest above the summit of the petiole, the basal lobes broadly rounded, the sinuses broad to narrow or even closed; cal-tube 0.7-1.5 cm, cylindric to slightly constricted above or slightly flaring, the lobes erect to spreading 3-10 mm, 5-9 mm wide at base; ovary superior to half inferior; style- extension merely notched at the tip; 2n=26. Moist or dry woods; s. Md. to W.Va. and e. Ky., s. to se. Va., Ga., and Ala. Apr., May. (H. contracta; H. heterophylla; H. memmingeri; H. naniflora)

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

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