Stachys palustris
Marsh Woundwort ( Stachys palustris)
The Marsh Woundwort ( Stachys palustris ) is a plant of the genus Zieste ( Stachys ) in the mint family ( Lamiaceae).
Description
Appearance and foliage leaf
The Swamp Betony grows as a deciduous, perennial herbaceous plant that reaches the plant height usually 30 to 100 (rarely up to 120) cm. It forms underground runners with whitish tubers as outlasting and their marrow acts as a storage tissue. To node rosary -like thickened rhizome tubers are, as in the very similar structure of potato tuber swelling of the ends of underground runners. In the autumn the whole plant dies. But in the following year to grow achselbürtige buds of tuberous rhizome that is used up here, approach to new plants. The plant parts are almost odorless. The square stems is adjacent to particularly at the edges hairy loose projecting silky.
The oppositely arranged leaves are constantly quite narrow, lanceolate or oblong and at the bottom a little heart-shaped. The middle and upper leaves are sessile and more or less amplexicaul, dull green, hairy on both sides tomentose to almost glabrous.
Inflorescence, flower and fruit
The flowering period is from June to September. Every four to ten flowers are borne in the mostly 10 to 20 (6 to 24) Scheinquirlen. The hermaphrodite flowers are zygomorphic and fünfzählig double perianth, and up to 1.5 cm long. There are five sepals present. The five petals are fused into a 9 mm long corolla tube. The petals are dull red-purple with lighter Schlängelzeichnung, pink or bright purple and mottled often reddish on the lower lip. The similar forest woundwort is best recognized by its darker, almost burgundy - red flowers. The calyx teeth protrude beyond the Klausen.
Ecology
The Marsh Woundwort is a tuber Geophyt. Vegetative propagation is abundant by stolons ( above).
Biologically flowers are vormännliche " Actual lip flowers of Satureja type ". The corolla tube has a hair ring as "juice ceiling" that protects the nectar. The upper lip is short, equipped with the lower lip line and Tüpfelmalen. Because of the rich nectar secretion, the flowers are visited by bees, butterflies and hoverflies. Before pollination spontaneous self-pollination is possible.
The fruits act as animal - and wind spreader; but possibly. well as dehydration spreader through the maturity horizontal standing, only enlarged, but then declining Chalice Also floating spread and spread by farm implements are possible. Fruit ripening occurs in July or August.
Occurrence
The distribution of the Marsh Woundwort is circumpolar. The Swamp Betony grows in moist, nutrient- rich areas such as in banks, in addition to water ditches or adjacent to wet fields.