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An idle moment with a packet of seed. I grew it for a couple of years as an annual where it filled small spaces inconspicuously.
I gave several to friends and I still occasionally see it where it has self-seeded in their gardens. It has done best growing in gravel paths. Missouri Botanical Garden say on their website: "Scutellaria lateriflora, commonly known as blue skullcap, mad dog skullcap and side-flowering skullcap, is a low-growing herbaceous perennial in the mint family that typically grows to 2-3’ tall. It is native to wetland areas from Quebec and Newfoundland west to British Columbia and south to California, Louisiana and Florida. Steyermark describes its range in Missouri as "low wet woods, swampy meadows, alluvial thickets, gravel bars, river flood plain forests, borders of sloughs, spring branches, streams, swamps, lowland and sink-hole ponds, and moist ledges of limestone and sandstone bluffs." The leaves of blue skullcap have a history of use in herbal medicines as a sedative and tranquilizer and for treatment of a variety of conditions including insomnia, anxiety, convulsions and certain neurological disorders. Genus name comes from the Latin word scutella meaning a small dish or saucer in reference to the shape of the persistent calyx after the flowers fade. Specific epithet means side-flowering in reference to the one-sided floral racemes. Common name of skullcap is in reference to the cap-like shape of the flowers and seed capsules which purportedly resemble the military helmets worn by men in the Middle Ages." |
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