White Vervain.Verbena urticæfolia.Nettle-leaved Vervain.
Found in waste places and roadsides, from July to September.
The branching stalk grows from 1 to 2 feet high, and is 4-sided, each side being grooved down its middle; it is strong-fibred, and rough-hairy, and green.
The oval leaf tapers to the tip, is coarsely toothed, and loose-fibred; its surface is hairy, and its color dark green. The leaves, on short stems, are placed upon the stalk in pairs.
The small, inconspicuous, white flower is 5-pointed. They are clustered in long slender spires, from the top of the stalk, and the angles of the upper leaves.
The leafage of the White Vervain bears a resemblance to the noxious Nettle, that at first sight would lead us to condemn the plant as unworthy; a closer observation bestowed upon the graceful gesture of its flowering spires will rescue its name from the limbo of “weeds.”