Lesser skullcap

Scutellaria minor, the lesser skullcap, is a small slender perennial herb in the family Lamiaceae native to western and central Europe, including Britain, Ireland, France, Iberia, the Low Countries, and the western Mediterranean, growing in wet acid heathy ground, damp grassland, bog margins, and the edges of woodland flushes. The plant forms creeping rhizomes from which arise erect or weakly ascending square stems 5-25 cm tall, sparsely branched and very slightly pubescent. Leaves are opposite, ovate-lanceolate to triangular-cordate, 1-3 cm long, with rounded basal lobes, mostly entire margins (or with one or two shallow teeth near the base), short petioles, and a slightly downy surface. The flowers are borne singly in the upper leaf axils, paired on opposite sides of the stem and all directed to one side (secund). Each corolla is small, 6-10 mm long, two-lipped, pale pink to pinkish-purple with darker spotting on the lower lip, and rises from a short tubular calyx with a characteristic dorsal scale or "skullcap" appendage that enlarges and closes over the developing nutlets in fruit. Flowering occurs from July to October.