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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Lamiaceae
Prunella vulgaris

Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 600 (1753).

Synonymy: Brunella vulgaris

Common name: Self-heal, heal-all.

Description:
Perennial herbs with decumbent quadrangular branches to 40 cm long often with adventitious roots, usually little-branched, with a few simple stout hairs mainly near the nodes but often glabrescent; leaves with a petiole 0.2-2 cm long; blade ovate, rarely lanceolate, 1.5-6 x 0.7-2.5 cm, acute to rounded, faintly serrate to entire, with scattered coarse hairs.

Inflorescence a thyrse without a peduncle, terminal on most branches, with usually 3-flowered dichasia hidden by bracts broadly ovate, sessile, often brownish, acuminate; sepals connate at varying levels, 2-lipped, 11-veined, 6-7 mm long, with a broad posterior lip with 3 sharp teeth, anterior lip deeply 2-lobed, with a few scattered simple hairs mainly along the veins; corolla a deep purplish-blue, 2-lipped with lips usually shorter than the tube, 8-12 mm long, with a few simple hairs on the hood of the broad upper lip being shallowly 2-lobed, with a lower lip broadly spathulate with 2 narrow lateral lobes and 1 broad central one with a crenate margin; stamens with the anterior pair inserted at about the middle and the posterior pair in the throat of the corolla tube, with filaments broadened at the base, glabrous; anthers broadly 2-lobed with 2 cells diverging at the base, and a terminal appendage, glabrous; ovary on a thick disk, deeply 4-lobed, with a slender style inserted near the base, with an exserted deeply 2-fid stigma at about the level of the anthers against the upper lip.

Mericarps oblong-obovoid c. 2 mm long, slightly centripetally compressed with 4 vertical ridges at 90º intervals, with the attachment scar basal with a small white protuberance, smooth.

image of FSA3_Prunella_vul.jpg
Image source: fig. 556I in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Ross-Craig (1967) Drawings Brit. Pl. 24:fig. 23.

Distribution:  Moist places in temperate regions.

S.Aust.: SL, SE.   All States except the N.T.   Europe; temperate Asia; probably introduced to North America.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: mainly Nov. — Feb.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Taxonomic notes: The name Brunella vulgaris is often found in literature but this orthographic variant has no standing as Linnaeus used unambiguously Prunella in 1753 although he had previously spelled it the other way.

Author: Not yet available


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