Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Obedient Plant is a native erect perennial growing on 4-angled hairless stems from 1 to 5 feet high, often branched near the top.

The leaves are opposite, narrowly lance shaped, usually with sharp pointed widely spaced teeth, and usually without stalks.

The inflorescence is a 2 to 10 inch high hairy raceme (spike) of showy flowers.

The flowers are five-parted, with tubular corollas that range in color from from rose to pale purple to white. The corolla expands in size beyond the calyx opening and has an upper and lower lip, often with dots or other small markings of a deeper color. Four stamens with purple anthers hang just under the upper lip opening which has a broad hood and functions as two combined petals. A style is between the stamens. The lower lip has 3 lobes, functioning as three combined petals, with the center lobe being the largest. The green calyx tube has 5 pointed teeth and it has dense fine hair. The outer surface of the corolla also has fine hair as does the inside throat of the corolla. The individual flowers are stalked and rise from the axil of a leaf-like bract that separates one flower from another on the raceme. Flowers are up to 1.3 inches long and open from the base of the raceme toward the top.

Seed: After fertilization the calyx inflates to produce a small smooth reddish-brown nutlet, 3-sided, sharply angled between 2 sides and rounded on the other side. These are produced in groups of 4 by each flower. Seeds require 60 days of cold stratification for germination.

Habitat: Obedient Plant grows from a rhizomatous root system and can rapidly form clumps and colonies. It can be aggressive and clumps should be divided frequently. They transplant easily. They will grow in full or partial sun as the two pink clump in Eloise Butler (shown below) indicate, growing in both the woodland and the sunny wetland, but without full sun plants can become top heavy and floppy without staking. Prune back early to shorten plant height to avoid this, but that will delay flowering, and in northern areas may result in no flowers. Best to have good moisture in wet to mesic conditions, but the plant will tolerate somewhat dry locations. Because of the aggressive growth plant them where you can control them.

Names: The common name refers to the ability of the flower to stay temporarily in the position placed by touching it. The alternate name of False Dragonhead refers to the plants supposed resemblance to a European plant named Dragonhead. An older scientific name for this species is Physostegia speciosa. The genus name, Physostegia, is from two Greek words - physa, meaning 'a bladder,' and stege, for 'roof covering,' together meaning "bladder covering" and refers to the inflated calyx which covers the seed before dispersal. The species name virginiana means 'of Virginia,' the state, where the plant was first collected. The author names for the plant classification are: First to classify was '(L.)' which refers to Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy. His work was amended by ‘Benth.’ which is for George Bentham, (1800-1884) English botanist, who published many texts of which his Handbook of the British Flora is most famous.

Comparisons: The 4-angled stems are most common to the Mint family and a number of mints have similar looking flowers. Obedient plant is widely grown by nurseries and wild populations may in fact be escapees from cultivation. Nursery stock is most often pink flowered while true wild populations tend toward white.