General: Perennial herb from a slender rhizome; stems single, 20-80 cm tall, 4-angled, glabrous or sparsely hairy with ascending to upcurled hairs, not glandular.
Leaves: Usually only stem leaves, opposite, narrowly egg-shaped to egg-shaped, 3-8 cm long, 1.5-5 cm wide, thin, pinnately veined, tips pointed, bases broadly rounded or slightly lobed, mostly glabrous; a few hairs along the main veins beneath, margins toothed; stalks 0.5-2.5 cm long.
Flowers: Inflorescence of 2-12 cm long racemes, in leaf axils or at the ends of branches; bracts to 8 mm long; corollas tubular, blue, 6-8 mm long, 2-lipped, the upper lip entire, shorter than lower and hood-like, the lower lip 3-lobed, with inner surface glabrous or sparsely soft-hairy; calyces 1.5-2.5 mm long, 2-lipped, upper lip with a scooped-out ridge across the back.
Fruits: Nutlets, 4 clustered together, almost spherical, brown.
Moist to wet shorelines, forest openings, meadows and grasslands in the lowland, steppe and montane zones; infrequent throughout BC, more common in C and S BC; E to NF and S to GA, TX and CA.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
