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Common Motherwort

Leonurus cardiaca. Mint Family.

Stem.--Tall and upright. Leaves.--Opposite; the lower rounded and lobed; the floral wedge-shaped at base and three-cleft. Flowers.--Pale purple; in close whorls in the axils of the leaves. Calyx.--"With five nearly equal teeth, which are awl-shaped, and when old rather spiny-pointed and spreading." (Gray.) Corolla.--Two-lipped; the upper lip somewhat arched and bearded, the lower three-lobed and spreading. Stamens.--Four; in pairs. Pistil.--One, with a two-lobed style.

The tall erect stems, opposite leaves, and regular whorls of closely clustered, pale purple flowers help us to easily identify the motherwort, if identification be needed, for it seems as though such old-fashioned, time-honored plants as catnip, tansy, and motherwort, which cling so persistently to the skirts of the old homestead in whose domestic economy they once played so important a part, should be familiar to us all.