Angiosperms (Flowering Plants) • Earth.com

Northern bugleweed

(Lycopus uniflorus)

galery
en

Description

Lycopus uniflorus is a species of flowering plant in the mint family known by the common name northern bugleweed. It is native to much of North America (Canada, United States) and east Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Russian Far East) Lycopus uniflorus can be found most often in moist areas, such as marshes. This is a perennial herb growing from a slender rhizome with thickened, tuberlike tips. The plant grows upright 10 to 50 centimeters tall. Its stem is lined with pairs of toothed leaves with heads of flowers in their axils. The flower is white and a few millimeters in length. The root of the plant was used as a food by several Native American groups.The tubers can be peeled and eaten raw, or pickled Lycopus (water horehound,gypsywort, or bugleweed) is a genus in the family Lamiaceae. They are all herbaceous plants native to Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America.The species are most often found in wetlands, damp meadows, and stream banks. Some of the wetland species have become endangered. The genus includes only perennial species; they spread by both seeds and stems rooting as they grow along the ground. Small white flowers bloom in late summer on leaf axials. Leaves are bright green, pointed, lobed, and like all mints occur in opposite pairs. Some species start with curled purple leaves that unfurl to a bright green coloration. The species in this genus vary in size, but generally grow to about 3–4 ft (91–122 cm). The plant's juice yields black dye, supposedly used by the Roma in Europe to tan their skin to mimic Egyptians, hence the common name of Gypsywort for Lycopus europaeus. Apothecaries and herbalists used the leaves, stems, and flowers for their astringent and sedative qualities as well as for anxiety, tuberculosis, and palpitations. Fossil seeds of †Lycopus antiquus are known from the Middle Miocene strata of southern Russia, from the Miocene of Lower Lusatia, Germany, and from the Late Miocene strata of western Siberia and Ukraine. Lycopus antiquus has possibly been applied to more than one extinct species which were widely distributed in Europe and Siberia from the Miocene to the Pliocene. Extant Lycopus species whose fruits most resemble L. antiquus, are the East Asian Lycopus lucidus and the Eurasian Lycopus exaltatus.

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order:Lamiales
Family:Lamiaceae
Genus:Lycopus
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