General: Perennial herb from rhizome; stems erect, 70-150 cm tall, mostly unbranched, 4-angled, bristly-hairy on the angles.
Leaves: Opposite, wedge- to egg-shaped, 6-15 cm long, 2.5-8 cm wide, coarsely blunt-toothed, long-hairy; only somewhat reduced and shorter-stalked upward; stalks 1.5-4.5 cm long.
Flowers: Inflorescence a series of clusters of several to many flowers, the lower subtended by slightly reduced leaves, the upper by bracts; corollas tubular, deep red-purple, the tube 15-25 mm long, 2-lipped, the upper lip erect, simple and somewhat hood-like, the lower lip 3-lobed, 8-14 mm long; calyces tubular, 8-11 (13) mm long, glandular-hairy, ring of hairs within near base of tube, teeth broadly lance-triangular, shorter than the tube, spine-tipped.
2. Plants densely covered with soft, white hairs...........................S. byzantina
2. Plants not white-hairy.
3. Leaves unstalked, at least those of upper half of stem.............. S. palustris
3. Leaves all stalked.
4. Plants 70-150 cm tall; corollas deep red-purple; tubes 15-23 mm long.......................S. chamissonis
4. Plants 30-80 cm tall; corollas pale pink to pink-purple, tubes 8-13 mm long....................S. mexicana
Source: Illustrated Flora of British Columbia
Habitat / Range
Wet to mesic swamps, waste places, roadsides, open woodlands and forest margins in the lowland and lower montane zone; common in SW BC west of the Coast-Cascade Mountains, rare on the Queen Charlotte Islands; S to OR.
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)
