Gratiola lutea
Gratiola virginiana
golden hedge-hyssop, gratiole dorée
round-fruit hedge-hyssop, Virginia hedge-hyssop
decumbent to ascending or erect, simple or few-branched, 5–47 cm, glabrous proximally, sparsely glandular-puberulent distally.
ascending to erect, simple or few-branched, 4–50 cm, glabrous or glabrate proximally, glabrous or glandular-puberulent distally.
blade lanceolate-ovate to oblong or ovate-elliptic, sometimes linear-lanceolate on submerged plants, 5–26 × (1.5–)3–7(–9) mm, margins entire or with 1 or 2 pairs of teeth, apex obtuse, rarely acute, surfaces glabrous.
blade lanceolate to elliptic or oblong-obovate, 15–70 × 5–25 mm, margins entire or with 1–4 pairs of blunt or sharp teeth distally, apex obtuse to acute, surfaces glabrous.
slender, (3–)5–20 mm, length 0.4–2.1 times bract, sparsely glandular-puberulent;
bracteoles 2, 2–4 mm.
stout, 1–12 mm, length 0.1–0.3 times bract, glabrous or sparsely glandular-puberulent;
bracteoles 2, 2–6 mm.
sepals distinct, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate, 3.5–7 mm;
corolla 8–15 mm, tube and limb yellow, rarely white or cream, veins yellow to orangish yellow, rarely white;
style 3.5–5 mm.
sepals distinct, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate or oblong, 4–7 mm;
corolla 8–15 mm, tube greenish white to greenish yellow or yellow, veins purple or brownish purple, limb white, sometimes tinged lavender;
style 2–4 mm.
ovoid, 2.2–4.5 × 2–3.5 mm.
subglobular, (3–)4–9 × 4–8 mm.
0.4–0.6 mm.
0.7–0.8 mm.
= 28.
= 16.
Gratiola lutea
Gratiola virginiana
The name Gratiola aurea has been used widely for G. lutea due to questions about the applicability of the name by Rafinesque, which predates the name by Muhlenberg by two years. F. W. Pennell (1935) reviewed the nomenclatural history, noting that the type on which the name by Rafinesque is based, a collection by A. Michaux deposited at P, had been identified by A. Gray, M. L. Fernald, and S. F. Blake as G. neglecta. However, Pennell determined that the collection by Michaux was a mixed gathering and that the name by Rafinesque applies to the yellow-flowered element thereof.
Gratiola lutea (as G. aurea) has been reported from Crittenden County, Arkansas (W. H. Wilcox 1973); it is excluded from Arkansas in recent state checklists (E. B. Smith 1991; J. L. Gentry et al. 2013). Reports from Alabama may be based on misidentified specimens. A specimen identified as G. lutea has been collected in Japan (D. Estes 2008), where it was presumably introduced.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Some plants from tidal wetlands in Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia are purportedly relatively shorter in stature and bear shorter pedicels and smaller capsules than most plants of Gratiola virginiana. They have been treated as var. aestuariorum; the distinctness of var. aestuariorum has not been assessed in the context of morphological variation across the range of G. virginiana.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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