Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana)

August 18^th, 2012. We had reached a section of the Saxon-Norman-Broad road at the edge of farmland where we see very little of interest when we saw a large patch of flowers. The roadside had been mowed recently but this patch of plants had been spared. I felt sure that this was a patch of naturalized non-native plants but… They were worth photographing and I was delighted to find that they were a native wildflower – the Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana) – that had been spared by someone who appreciated them.

The patch of flowers. The grass cleared by the mower is clearly visible in the foreground. It’s unusual of patches of wildflowers to be spared when roadsides are being mowed.

A closer view of the patch.

Stems of Physostegia virginica are thickly leaved along the lower section of the stem compared with Physostegia angustifolia

An individual stem

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Close views of an individual flower.

Physostegia virginiana (Obedient Plant, False Dragonhead, Obedient-plant) is native to the United States, where it’s found in states east of a line from North Dakota to Texas, and including Montana, Utah and New Mexico. In Georgia, it’s been documented in a few counties in north and south; It has not been formally documented in Oglethorpe County.

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Identification resources:

- Southeastern Flora: Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana) 

- Name that Plant: Native and Naturalized Plants of the Carolinas and Georgia: Physostegia virginiana (Northern Obedient-plant, False Dragonhead, Obedient-plant)

Distribution:

- United States Department of Agriculture Plants Database: Physostegia virginiana

- University of North Carolina Herbarium: Physostegia virginiana