WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

With long, soft hairs and square stems reaching 3-feet tall, this moist-habitat plant has clusters of pink to purple flowers with lines. Note the opposite leaves and whorls of flowers spread along the leafy upper stems.

FLOWER: July–September. Spikes with clusters in the leaf axils with 2–6 tubular flowers, 3/8–5/8-inch long (8–15 mm) with a spreading hooding upper lip and 3-lobed lower lip; the lips of the tubular flowers barely extend beyond the sepals (calyx).

LEAVES: Opposite, stemless (sessile) or nearly so. Blades oblong to triangular or elliptic, 1 1/4–3-inches long (3–9 cm), surfaces covered with long hairs, margins serrated.

HABITAT: Moist gravelly, clay loam soils, streambanks, riparian areas, meadows; foothills, ponderosa forests.

ELEVATION: 6,000–9,000 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, NM, UT; widespread in northern half of North America.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Rothrock’s Hedgenettle, S. rothrockii, in western NM and scattered elsewhere, is woolly-hairy and has brownish-orange flowers. Scarlet Hedgenettle, S. coccinea, at lower elevations in southwest NM, has bright-red flowers.

NM COUNTIES: Widespread in NM mountains in mid-elevation, moist habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Cibola, Colfax, Grant, Lincoln, McKinley, Mora, Otero, Rio Arriba, San Juan, San Miguel, Santa Fe, Socorro, Taos.