Lepechinia fragrans

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Lepechinia fragrans
Lepechinia fragrans 2.jpg
Scientific classification Red Pencil Icon.png
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Lamiales
Family: Lamiaceae
Genus: Lepechinia
Species:
L. fragrans
Binomial name
Lepechinia fragrans
The cultivar 'El Tigre' LepechiniafragransET.jpg
The cultivar 'El Tigre'

Lepechinia fragrans is a flowering herbaceous shrub known by the common names island pitchersage and fragrant pitchersage. It is a member of the Lamiaceae, or mint family, but like other Lepechinia , the flowers are borne in racemes instead of in mintlike whorls.

Contents

Distribution

Lepechinia fragrans is endemic to California. It is found in open areas in chaparral, in dry ravines, on rocky slopes and ridgetops, between 60 and 1100 meters. It is known in the Trifuno Pass area of the Santa Monica Mountains and in the San Gabriel Mountains, as well as the north Channel Islands. It may also exist in Ventura County and areas on the south coast below Los Angeles County, California.

It is threatened by development and by fire management. While it is not listed as a threatened or endangered plant by the State of California or by the U.S. federal government, it is listed by the California Native Plant Society as a plant of limited distribution which is fairly endangered and should be watched. [1]

Description

Lepechinia fragrans is a vase-shaped herbaceous shrub from 60 centimeters to just under 2 meters in height and equal in spread. It tends to grow taller in shade, and somewhat shorter in full sun. The plant itself is light green, but the many hairs give it a fuzzy grayish-green appearance. The entire plant is hairy, with long nonglandular hairs and glands which have short or no stalks. It has a pleasant scent which may be released when the glands are touched. Its arching branches become woody toward the base of the plant. It has the square stems of the mint family, which are very pronounced in this species.

The leaves can be deltate-lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, and are smooth-edged or slightly serrate. The lower ones are petioled below and generally larger, to 12 centimeters. Upper leaves can lack petioles and are generally smaller, as little as 4 centimeters in length. Like many of California's plants, it has two types of leaves. Larger, lusher leaves are produced during the rainy season in winter, and some of these are shed during the dry season, and are replaced by leaves which are smaller and more gray in color

The flowers range in color from white to pale pink to medium purple. The calyx has 5 lobes and is slightly two-lipped. It is persistent in fruit and enlarges, becoming slightly inflated and turning purple. The corolla is bell-shaped and 2.5 to 3 centimeters long. It is also two-lipped, with the upper lip divided into 4 lobes, and a larger, unlobed lower lip. There are two pairs of stamens and a double-lobed style in the flower's throat.

The fruit is a cluster of four smooth to shiny nutlets which are dark brown to black in color. They are round to ovate, with a length of 2 to 4 millimeters.

Cultivation

The Lepechinia fragrans plant is easy to grow, and is easy to propagate from seed, but can be a short-lived ornamental plant in the garden. Lepechinia fragrans "has the most attractive flowers and most pleasing scent of all our native pitcher sage species" according to California Native Plants for the Garden. [2] It is pollinated by bumblebees.

It will grow in sun or light shade, and does best in soils with good drainage. It should be pinched back to create a more compact, fuller plant.

The cultivar 'El Tigre' has darker blooms and more purple in the calyx and bracts.

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<i>Acanthomintha duttonii</i> Species of flowering plant

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<i>Lepechinia</i> Genus of flowering plants

Lepechinia is a genus of plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It includes several species of plants known commonly as pitchersages. Plants of this genus can be found in Central and South America, Mexico, California, Hispaniola, and Hawaii, although the species in Hawaii is probably a human introduction. Many of them bear attractive pitcher-shaped flowers, often in shades of purple. The genus was named for the Russian botanist Ivan Ivanovich Lepechin. Recently, the two monotypic genera Chaunostoma and Neoeplingia were shown to be part of Lepechinia.

  1. Lepechinia anomalaEpling - southern Brazil
  2. Lepechinia bellaEpling - Bolivia
  3. Lepechinia betonicaefolia(Lam.) Epling - Colombia, Ecuador
  4. Lepechinia bullata (Kunth) Epling - Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela
  5. Lepechinia calycina(Benth.) Epling ex Munz – pitcher sage, woodbalm - California
  6. Lepechinia cardiophyllaEpling – Santa Ana pitcher sage - southern California, Baja California
  7. Lepechinia caulescens(Ortega) Epling - Mexico, Guatemala
  8. Lepechinia chamaedryoides(Balb.) Epling - Chile
  9. Lepechinia cocuyensisJ.R.I.Wood - Colombia
  10. Lepechinia codonEpling - Peru
  11. Lepechinia conferta(Benth.) Epling - Colombia, Venezuela
  12. Lepechinia dioicaJ.A.Hart - Ecuador
  13. Lepechinia flammeaMart.Gord. & Lozada-Pérez - Guerrero
  14. Lepechinia floribunda(Benth.) Epling - Peru, Bolivia, Argentina
  15. Lepechinia fragrans(Greene) Epling – island pitcher sage, fragrant pitcher sage - southern California including offshore Channel Islands
  16. Lepechinia ganderiEpling – San Diego pitcher sage - southern California, Baja California
  17. Lepechinia glomerataEpling - Jalisco
  18. Lepechinia hastata(A.Gray) Epling – pakata - Baja California and Baja California Sur, including Revillagigedo Islands; naturalized in Hawaii
  19. Lepechinia heteromorpha (Briq.) Epling - Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia
  20. Lepechinia lamiifolia(Benth.) Epling - Ecuador, Peru
  21. Lepechinia lancifolia(Rusby) Epling - Bolivia
  22. Lepechinia leucophylloides(Ramamoorthy, Hiriart & Medrano) B.T.Drew, Cacho & Sytsma - Hidalgo
  23. Lepechinia maricaEpling & Mathias - Peru
  24. Lepechinia mecistandra(Donn.Sm.) H.K.Moon - Chiapas, Guatemala, El Salvador
  25. Lepechinia mexicana(S.Schauer) Epling - central + northeastern Mexico
  26. Lepechinia meyenii(Walp.) Epling - Peru, Bolivia, Argentina
  27. Lepechinia mollis(Epling) Epling - Peru
  28. Lepechinia mutica(Benth.) Epling - Ecuador
  29. Lepechinia nelsonii(Fernald) Epling - central + southern Mexico
  30. Lepechinia paniculata(Kunth) Epling - Ecuador
  31. Lepechinia radula (Benth.) Epling - Ecuador, Peru
  32. Lepechinia rossiiS.Boyd & Mistretta – Ross' pitcher sage - southern California
  33. Lepechinia rufocampiiEpling & Mathias - Ecuador
  34. Lepechinia salviae(Lindl.) Epling - Chile
  35. Lepechinia salviifolia(Kunth) Epling - Colombia, Venezuela
  36. Lepechinia schiedeana(Schltdl.) Vatke - Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela
  37. Lepechinia scobinaEpling - Peru
  38. Lepechinia speciosa(A.St.-Hil. ex Benth.) Epling - southern Brazil
  39. Lepechinia tomentosa(Benth.) Epling - Peru
  40. Lepechinia urbani (Briq.) Epling - Hispaniola
  41. Lepechinia velutinaJ.R.I.Wood - Colombia
  42. Lepechinia vesiculosa(Benth.) Epling - Peru, Bolivia, Argentina
  43. Lepechinia vulcanicolaJ.R.I.Wood - Colombia
  44. Lepechinia yecoranaHenrickson, Fishbein & T.Van Devender - Sonora
<i>Salvia dorrii</i> Species of shrub

Salvia dorrii, the purple sage, Dorr's sage, fleshy sage, mint sage, or tobacco sage, is a perennial spreading shrub in the family Lamiaceae. It is native to mountain areas in the western United States and northwestern Arizona, found mainly in the Great Basin and southward to the Mojave Desert, growing in dry, well draining soils.

<i>Lepechinia calycina</i> Species of plant

Lepechinia calycina is a species of flowering plant in the mint family known by the common name pitchersage or woodbalm. It is endemic to California, where it is a common plant in several different habitat types, including the chaparral plant community.

<i>Eupatorium fortunei</i> Species of flowering plant

Eupatorium fortunei is a plant species in the family Asteraceae native from Asia where it is rare in the wild but commonly cultivated. The white to reddish colored flowers and herbage smell like lavender when crushed. In China the plants are used to make fragrant oils.

<i>Pinguicula orchidioides</i> Species of carnivorous plant

Pinguicula orchidioides is a perennial rosette-forming insectivorous herb native to Mexico and Guatemala. A species of butterwort, it forms summer rosettes of flat, succulent leaves up to 5 centimeters (2 in) long, which are covered in mucilaginous (sticky) glands that attract, trap, and digest arthropod prey. Nutrients derived from the prey are used to supplement the nutrient-poor substrate that the plant grows in. Uniquely among Pinguicula species from the Americas, p. orchidioides produces gemma-like basal buds which elongate into stolons and serve as a means of asexual reproduction. In the winter the plant forms a non-carnivorous rosette of small, fleshy leaves that conserves energy while food and moisture supplies are low. Single purple flowers appear between July and September on upright stalks up to 22 centimeters long.

<i>Mimulus alatus</i> Species of flowering plant

Mimulus alatus, the sharpwing monkeyflower, is an herbaceous eudicot perennial that has no floral scent. It is native to North America and its blooming season is from June to September. The flowering plant has green foliage and blue to violet flowers. It has a short life span compared to most other plants and a rapid growth rate. Like other monkey-flowers of the genus Mimulus, M. alatus grows best in wet to moist conditions and has a bilabiate corolla, meaning it is two-lipped. The arrangement of the upper and lower lip petals suggests a monkey’s face. The winged stems together with the monkey face give the plant its common name.

<i>Scutellaria mexicana</i> Species of shrub

Scutellaria mexicana, commonly known by variants on bladder sage or paperbag bush, is a shrub of the mint family Lamiaceae distinctive for its calyx lobes that develop into small bag- or bladder-like shells around the fruits.

<i>Monarda bradburiana</i> Species of flowering plant

Monarda bradburiana, the eastern beebalm or Bradbury's beebalm, is a species of perennial flowering plant in the mint family, Lamiaceae, that is native to much of the southeastern United States.

<i>Clinopodium menthifolium</i> Species of flowering plant

Clinopodium menthifolium, commonly known as the wood calamint or woodland calamint, is a species of flowering plant in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is found throughout southern and central Europe from the United Kingdom and east as far as temperate parts of Asia, and as south as North Africa. It grows up to 1,700 m (5,600 ft) in elevation.

<i>Lonicera acuminata</i> Species of vine

Lonicera acuminata, commonly known as fragrant grove honeysuckle or vine honeysuckle, is a plant species of honeysuckle native to China to Southeast Asia and India.

Larsenianthus arunachalensis is a species of the genus Larsenianthus in the ginger family (Zingiberaceae).. It was first described in 2010 and is native to northeastern India.

References

  1. ↑ California Native Plant Society Rare Plants Profile
  2. ↑ Bornstein, Fross, and O'Brien. 2005. California Native Plants for the Garden. Cachuma Press.
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