Verbena hastata

Blue vervain

Family: Verbenaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Blue vervain is a California native perennial found in the Great Valley, central Coast, San Francisco Bay Area, and North Coast Ranges in wet places and marshes at elevations below 1,300 meters. Flowering from June to September, this plant produces blue to violet flowers in dense spikes 3 to 15 centimeters long. Growing with one to two erect stems 35 to 150 centimeters tall that are sparsely hairy, it develops lance-shaped leaves 9 to 15 centimeters long with serrated edges and rough texture. Its leaves have an acute base with short petioles and appear somewhat scabrous or bristly. The small fruits are approximately 2 millimeters long, clustered densely in overlapping arrangements along the flower spikes.

Habitat: Wet places, marshes

Bloom period: Jun-Sep

Elevation: < 1300 m

Bioregions: GV, CCo, SnFrB, MP

California counties: Butte, Contra Costa, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Modoc, Tehama, Shasta, Solano, Yuba, Lassen, Glenn, Mariposa

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.