Teucrium canadense

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Teucrium canadense
American Germander (2981720555).jpg
Status TNC G5.svg
Secure  (NatureServe) [1]
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Lamiales
Family: Lamiaceae
Genus: Teucrium
Species:
T. canadense
Binomial name
Teucrium canadense
L.

Teucrium canadense, commonly known as Canada germander, [2] American germander, [1] or wood sage, [3] is a perennial herb in the family Lamiaceae. It is native to North America where it is found across the contiguous states of the United States and in much of Canada.

Contents

Description

American germander is a robust perennial plant with a fibrous root system, forming clumps up to 3 ft (90 cm) tall. The upright squarish stems have small side branches, and send out rhizomes at the base. The leaves are opposite, stemmed lower on the plant and unstemmed on the upper sections of the stalk. They are ovate or lanceolate, deeply veined and coarsely toothed, up to 5 in (13 cm) long and 2.5 in (6 cm) wide. [4]

American Germander in Bloom American Germander in Bloom.jpg
American Germander in Bloom

The terminal inflorescence is a raceme up to 8 in (20 cm) long containing numerous whitish or pale lilac lipped flowers with large shelf-like lower lips. The plant is in bloom from about mid-June for about a month, blooming from the bottom of the raceme upward. [5] The flowers have no scent. The fruits contain four roundish yellowish brown seeds. [6]

Distribution and habitat

The species is native to North America. Its range extends throughout the 48 contiguous states of the United States, and it is also present in much of Canada. [7] It is a common plant, growing in moist grassland, at the edges of forests, in thickets, on river verges and at the edges of marshes. It also grows on wasteland, in poorly-drained areas and beside roadside ditches, and can be somewhat aggressive. [4]

Ecology

The flowers of American germander are adapted for pollination by insects with long tongues, the lower lip providing a platform on which the insects can land. Pollinators include bumblebees, honey bees, digger bees, cuckoo bees and megachilid bees, and the flowers are also visited by flies and butterflies and occasionally by hummingbird moths and hummingbirds. [4] The foliage is unappealing to grazing animals because of its bitter taste. [4]

Uses

American germander contains a number of chemicals with pharmacological properties, such as flavinoids, diterpenoids, tannins, bitter aromatics, volatile oils and glycosides, including saponins. The earliest known use of the plant was by Native Americans who ground the leaves to prepare a herbal tea for use as a diuretic and to promote sweating. The green parts of the plant are also used as an antiseptic wound dressing and made into a tincture for gargling. [8]

Etymology

The genus Teucrium honors King Teucer, king of Troy, who was first to use one of the species of plants to relieve stomach pain and gout. The specific epithet canadense refers to the plant being native (in part) to Canada. [9]

Related Research Articles

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

Teucrium is a cosmopolitan genus of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae, commonly known as germanders. Plants in this genus are perennial herbs or shrubs, with branches that are more or less square in cross-section, leaves arranged in opposite pairs, and flowers arranged in thyrses, the corolla with mostly white to cream-coloured, lobed petals.

<i>Maianthemum canadense</i> Species of flowering plant

Maianthemum canadense is an understory perennial flowering plant, native to Canada and the northeastern United States, from Yukon and British Columbia east to Newfoundland, into St. Pierre and Miquelon. It can be found growing in both coniferous and deciduous forests. The plant appears in two forms, either as a single leaf rising from the ground with no fruiting structures or as a flowering/fruiting stem with 2-3 leaves. Flowering shoots have clusters of 12–25 starry-shaped, white flowers held above the leaves.

<i>Ajuga reptans</i> Species of flowering plant

Ajuga reptans is commonly known as bugle, blue bugle, bugleherb, bugleweed, carpetweed, carpet bugleweed, and common bugle, and traditionally however less commonly as St. Lawrence plant. It is an herbaceous flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae, native to Europe. It is invasive in parts of North America. It is also a component of purple moor grass and rush pastures, a Biodiversity Action Plan habitat in the United Kingdom.

<i>Passiflora lutea</i> Species of vine

Passiflora lutea, commonly known as yellow passionflower, is a flowering perennial vine in the family Passifloraceae, native to the central and eastern United States. The vine has three-lobed leaves and small, yellowish-green, fringed flowers that appear in the summer, followed by green fruit that turn almost black at maturity. It grows in moist to wet habitats.

<i>Liatris aspera</i> Species of flowering plant

Liatris aspera is a perennial wildflower in the Asteraceae family that is found in central to eastern North America in habitats that range from mesic to dry prairie and dry savanna.

<i>Desmodium canadense</i> Species of legume

Desmodium canadense is a species of flowering plant in the legume family, Fabaceae. It is native to eastern North America. Its common names include showy tick-trefoil, Canadian tick-trefoil, and Canada tickclover.

<i>Teucrium scorodonia</i> Species of herb

Teucrium scorodonia, common name the woodland germander or wood sage, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Teucrium of the family Lamiaceae. It is native to Western Europe and Tunisia, but cultivated in many places as an ornamental plant in gardens, and naturalized in several regions.

<i>Scutellaria lateriflora</i> Species of flowering plant

Scutellaria lateriflora, is a hardy perennial herb of the mint family, Lamiaceae, native to North America.

<i>Asarum canadense</i> Species of flowering plant

Asarum canadense, commonly known as Canada wild ginger, Canadian snakeroot, and broad-leaved asarabacca, is a herbaceous, perennial plant which forms dense colonies in the understory of deciduous forests throughout its native range in eastern North America, from the Great Plains east to the Atlantic Coast, and from southeastern Canada south to around the Fall Line in the southeastern United States.

<i>Salvia coccinea</i> Species of plant

Salvia coccinea, the blood sage, scarlet sage, Texas sage, or tropical sage, is a herbaceous perennial in the family Lamiaceae that is widespread throughout the Southeastern United States, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. At one time Brazil was considered to be where it originated, but its diploid chromosome count now points to Mexico as its place of origin.

<i>Salvia</i> Largest genus of plants in the mint family

Salvia is the largest genus of plants in the sage family Lamiaceae, with nearly 1000 species of shrubs, herbaceous perennials, and annuals. Within the Lamiaceae, Salvia is part of the tribe Mentheae within the subfamily Nepetoideae. One of several genera commonly referred to as sage, it includes two widely used herbs, Salvia officinalis and Salvia rosmarinus.

<i>Scutellaria incana</i> Species of flowering plant

Scutellaria incana, the hoary skullcap or downy skullcap, is a flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae and is native to North America. It is a perennial flowering plant and is primarily found in the eastern United States as well as some parts of the Midwest.

<i>Penstemon deustus</i> Species of flowering plant

Penstemon deustus is a species of penstemon known by the common names hotrock penstemon and scabland penstemon. It is native to much of the northwestern United States from the Pacific Northwest to Wyoming, where it grows in many types of forest and open plateau habitat, often on soils heavy in volcanic rock or on limestone outcrops. It is a perennial herb with upright branches approaching 40 centimetres (16 in) in maximum height. The thick leaves are lance-shaped to oval or round, and are sharply toothed. Most leaves occur low on the plant. The inflorescence produces tubular flowers with lipped, five-lobed mouths. The glandular flower is cream in color with dark lining and reaches 1.5 cm in length.

<i>Agastache foeniculum</i> Species of flowering plant

Agastache foeniculum, commonly called anise hyssop, blue giant hyssop, Fragrant giant hyssop, or the lavender giant hyssop, is a species of perennial plant in the mint family, (Lamiaceae). This plant is native to much of north-central and northern North America, notably the Great Plains and other prairies. It is tolerant of deer and drought, and also attracts hummingbirds, butterflies, bumblebees, honey bees, carpenter bees, and night flying moths.

<i>Galearis rotundifolia</i> Species of orchid

Galearis rotundifolia is a species of flowering plants in the orchid family, Orchidaceae. It is commonly called roundleaf orchis and small round-leaved orchid. It is a succulent perennial herb native to North America, where it occurs throughout Canada, part of the northern United States, and Greenland.

<i>Blephilia hirsuta</i> Species of flowering plant

Blephilia hirsuta is an herbaceous perennial of the mint family Lamiaceae native to eastern North America. It is commonly called hairy wood-mint or hairy pagoda plant.

<i>Delphinium tricorne</i> Species of flowering plant

Delphinium tricorne, known by the common names dwarf larkspur or spring larkspur, is a species of flowering plant in the Ranunculaceae (buttercup) family. It is native to the central and eastern United States, where it is the most common Delphinium found.

<i>Hedysarum boreale</i> Species of legume

Hedysarum boreale is a species of flowering plant in the Fabaceae, or legume family, and is known by the common names Utah sweetvetch, boreal sweet-vetch, northern sweetvetch, and plains sweet-broom. It is native to North America, where it is widespread in northern and western regions of Canada and the United States. The ssp. mackenzii can even be found in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

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

Monarda clinopodia, commonly known as white bergamot, basil bee balm or white bee balm, is a perennial wildflower in the mint family, Lamiaceae. This species is native to North America, ranging north from New York, west to Missouri, and south to Georgia and Alabama. M. clinopodia has also been introduced into Vermont and Massachusetts.

References

  1. 1 2 "NatureServe Explorer 2.0". explorer.natureserve.org.
  2. USDA, NRCS (n.d.). "Teucrium canadense". The PLANTS Database (plants.usda.gov). Greensboro, North Carolina: National Plant Data Team. Retrieved 24 September 2016.
  3. "Wood sage". Florida Wildflower Foundation. 26 June 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "American germander". Wildflowers of Illinois. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  5. "Know Your Natives – American Germander". Arkansas Native Plant Society. 21 July 2016.
  6. "Teucrium canadense - Plant Finder". www.missouribotanicalgarden.org.
  7. "American Germander, Wood Sage, Canada Germander - Teucrium canadense". Wildflowers of the United States. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  8. "Teucrium canadense". The Medicinal Herb Gardens at ONU. Ohio Northern University. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  9. "Teucrium canadense". Missouri Botanical Garden. Retrieved October 6, 2016.