Norfolk skullcap

Scutellaria hastifolia, the spear-leaved or Norfolk skullcap, is a slender rhizomatous perennial herb in the Lamiaceae family, native to central and northern Europe and western Asia, where it grows in damp meadows, fen margins, lakeshores and riverbanks. It typically reaches 15 to 40 cm in height, with creeping underground rhizomes that give rise to erect, simple or sparingly branched, square stems clothed in short curved hairs. The leaves are opposite, sessile or short-petiolate, ovate-lanceolate to hastate, 2 to 4 cm long, with a distinctly arrow- or spear-shaped base and a few coarse teeth along the lower margins; the upper leaves are nearly entire. The flowers are borne in pairs in the axils of leaf-like bracts towards the top of the stem, forming a leafy one-sided raceme. Each flower is a slender, two-lipped tubular corolla 1.5 to 2 cm long, bright blue-violet with a paler throat. The calyx is two-lipped and bears the characteristic scale-like protuberance (the scutellum) that gives the genus its name. Fruits are four small nutlets.