Perennial herb 30 cm - 0.6 m tall Stem: decumbent to ascending, rooting at lower nodes, hairy to hairless. Leaves: opposite, 3 - 9 cm long, 1.5 - 4 cm wide, variable, egg-shaped to narrow egg-shaped, deeply and irregularly cut to three-parted, nearly hairless or with appressed hairs. Inflorescence: a spike, depressed-headlike at flowering, elongate in fruit. Flowers: subtended by linear, stiff-haired bracts shorter than or equal to the calyx and usually lined with hairs along the margin. The calyx is 10 - 13 mm long with unequal bristle-like lobes and stiff glandular hairs, and the corolla is blue to purple or white, 10 - 15 mm wide, with a tube twice as long as the calyx and lobes notched at the tip. Fruit: four nutlets, each 3 - 3.5 mm long, with interconnecting veins and shallow depressions.
Similar species: Glandularia species have a five-lobed calyx at least 8 mm in length, a corolla at least 1 cm long, and fruit separating into four nutlets. Glandularia bipinnatifida differs by having a corolla tube one and a half times as long as the calyx and bracts that are usually longer than the calyx. Glandularia peruviana is distinguished by its short triangular calyx lobes and less deeply cut leaves.
Flowering: late May to late September
Habitat and ecology: Introduced from the southern United States, it has escaped from cultivation and is found locally along railroads and in waste ground.
Occurence in the Chicago region: non-native
Etymology: Glandularia means "with small glands." Canadensis means "from Canada."
Author: The Morton Arboretum
From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam
This species has been reported from 6 counties. It has long been cultivated and much used for planting on graves in cemeteries whence it doubtless frequently escapes. I have found this species growing on the slope of a creek bank below an old cemetery in which I found it to be common. It has abundantly escaped from cemeteries in Jefferson County and it was found by Chas. M. Ek as an escape from a cemetery in Howard County. I believe it is an escape in Indiana.
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Indiana Coefficient of Conservatism: C = null, non-native