Scullcap

Scutellaria lateriflora, the Virginia or blue skullcap, is a herbaceous perennial of the mint family (Lamiaceae) native to moist woodlands, swamp margins, meadows and stream banks across much of North America from Quebec and British Columbia south to Florida and California. From a slender creeping rhizome the plant produces erect, slender, square, branching stems 30 to 80 centimetres tall, glabrous or sparsely pubescent, often somewhat reddish at the nodes. The opposite, petiolate leaves are thin, ovate to lance-ovate, 3 to 8 centimetres long, with coarsely serrate margins, an acuminate apex and a rounded to truncate base. Small two-lipped tubular flowers about 6 to 8 millimetres long, pale blue to lavender-blue with a white throat, are borne in slender one-sided racemes from the axils of the upper leaves, the calyx bearing the characteristic scutellate dorsal protuberance that gives the genus its name. The fruit consists of four small wrinkled nutlets enclosed in the enlarged persistent calyx. The plant lacks the strong aroma of many mints.