Purple prairie verbena

Glandularia bipinnatifida

Gently rounded clusters of bilaterally symmetrical pink, lavender, or purple flowers bloom atop stems with highly divided leaves. The Spanish name, Moradilla, comes from morado (“purple”) and means “little purple one.” This plant often forms brilliant displays of pink or light purple, covering acres of ground. It is a variable complex, with some plants tall and pink-flowered, others more matted and with lavender or purple flowers; the two forms are usually found in separate areas. The genus Glandularia is closely related to Verbena, differing conspicuously in its round-topped clusters of showy flowers; in some references, this species is listed as Verbena ambrosifolia.
Purple Flower Geotagged,Glandularia bipinnatifida,Purple prairie verbena,United States,Wildflowers

Appearance

Closely related to the true vervains and sometimes still included with them in Verbena, horizontal chloroplast transfer occurred at least twice and possibly three times between these genera, which are otherwise rather too distinct to warrant unification.
This species is a member of the verbena family (family Verbenaceae), which includes about 75 genera and 3,000 species of herbs, shrubs, and trees, mostly of tropical and warm temperate regions. Among them, teak is a highly prized furniture wood, and Vervain, Lantana, Lippia or Frog Fruit are grown as ornamentals.

Naming

The discovery of the signal in the chloroplast genome was announced in 2008 by University of Washington researchers. Somehow, chloroplasts from V. orcuttiana, Swamp Verbena (V. hastata) or a close relative of these had admixed into the G. bipinnatifida germline. Although hybridization runs rampant in the true and mock vervains – the ancestors of the well-known Garden Vervain are quite obscure –, it does not seem to have been the cause of the cross-species gene transfer.

Distribution

USA
Native Distribution: Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to northern Mexico.

Habitat

Native Habitat: Common in open grassy areas. Widespread throughout most of the state of Texas. Well-drained sand, loam, clay, caliche, limestone.

Reproduction

Distributed via seed, nectar attracts birds and insects

Predators

Resistant to deer

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=GLBI2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glandularia
Taxonomy
KingdomPlantae
DivisionAngiosperms
ClassEudicots
OrderLamiales
FamilyVerbenaceae
GenusGlandularia
SpeciesGlandularia bipinnatifida
Photographed in
United States of America