Bouchea prismatica (L.) Kuntze

• Authority

  Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.

• Family

  Verbenaceae

• Scientific Name

  Bouchea prismatica (L.) Kuntze

• Description

  Species Description - A low, annual, violet-flowered herb, frequent in dry soil at lower altitudes in Porto Rico, observed also on Culebra Island, and distributed nearly all over tropical America. It grows on hillsides, in fields, and in cultivated grounds, mostly in sunny situations. We find no popular names recorded. Bouchea, described as a genus by the German botanist Chamisso in 1832, commemorates P. C. Bouché and C. D. Bouché, German gardeners, and has about 15 species of herbs and low shrubs, inhabiting tropical regions; they have opposite, stalked, toothed leaves and small, bracted flowers in terminal, long, slender clusters. The tubular calyx is 5-ribbed, and 5-toothed; the corolla has a slender tube, and an obliquely spreading, nearly equally 5-cleft limb; there are 4 stamens, in 2 pairs, borne on the corolla-tube, the filaments short; the 2-celled ovary has 1 or 2 ovules in each cell, and the style is slender. The slender, dry fruit, enclosed by the calyx, separates into 2, narrow nutlets. Bouchea prismatica (prismatic, referring to the calyx) is annual, hairy, little branched, from 20 to 50 centimeters high. The ovate, pointed, slender-stalked, sharply toothed leaves are from 2 to 6 centimeters long. The very slender flower clusters are often 15 to 20 centimeters long, or even longer, the individual flowers on upright stalks only about 1 millimeter long; the slender, cylindric calyx, appressed to the axis of the flower-cluster, is about 10 millimeters long, its teeth awl-shaped; the violet or purplish corolla is a little longer than the calyx, the narrow fruit also a little longer.

• Discussion

  Vervain Family Verbena prismatica Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 19. 1753. Bouchea Ehrenbergii Chamisso, Linnaea 7: 253. 1832. Bouchea prismatica Kuntze, Revisio Genera Plantarum 502. 1691.