This section is from the book "A Guide To The Wild Flowers", by Alice Lounsberry. Also available from Amazon: A Guide to the Wild Flowers.
(Plate CII.)
Figwort.
White, tinged with purple.
Scentless.
New York to Virginia and westward.
Late spring and summer.
Flowers: clustered in a loose panicle. Calyx: of five green, pointed sepals. Corolla: bell-shaped; two-lipped; the upper lip, two-lobed, the lower one, three-lobed and slightly spreading; inflated. Stamens: five. Pistil: one; stigma, two-lobed. Leaves: opposite; lanceolate. Stem: sometimes growing very high; erect; smooth.
The open mouth of these pretty flowers gives them a comical expression as though they were about to speak; and the effect is heightened by the bearding of the sterile stamen, which looks like a saucy little tongue. In the west they are among the attractive blossoms of rocky places.
 
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