Stems erect, four-angled, hairy, slender or rather stout, usually branched with ascending branches, 1 to 3 feet high. Leaves ovate-lanceolate, thin, pointed at the apex, sharply toothed, rounded at the base, 1 to 4 inches long, one-half to 11/2 inches wide with slender petioles shorter than the blades. Flowers purplish pink in dense, terminal, spikelike panicles.

Calyx ten-nerved, unequally five-toothed, bracts, calyx and axis of the spike hairy and often glandular. Corolla one-third to one-half of an inch long, with a short tube, the limb irregularly five-lobed, the two short upper lobes oblong, the lower lobes broader and declined. Stamens four, projecting from between the two upper lobes of the corolla.

Memoir 15 N. Y. State Museum

Plate 184

Hairy Germander Or Wood Sage - Teucrium occidentale

In moist soil in woods and thickets. Maine to Ontario and British Columbia, south to eastern Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Mexico.

Flowering from July to September.

The American Germander or Wood Sage (Teucrium canadense Linnaeus) is very similar, but the calyx, bracts etc. are canescent without being hairy or glandular. The Narrow-leaved Germander (Teucrium littorale Bicknell), common on or near the coast, has narrower, sharply toothed leaves, often densely canescent.