Fog-fruit (Phyla lanceolata)
- Family: Vervain (Verbenaceae)
- Flowering: May-September.
- Field Marks: This species is distinguished by its small purple heads consisting of tiny white or pinkish flowers with 4 petals borne on a leafless stalk.
- Habitat: Along streams, around ponds and lakes, roadside ditches, wet prairies, marshes, sloughs.
- Habit: Perennial herb with fibrous roots.
- Stems: Creeping or sometimes ascending, often rooting at the nodes, smooth or sparsely hairy, up to 1 1/2 feet long.
- Leaves: Opposite, simple, lanceolate to narrowly ovate, pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, coarsely toothed, sparsely hairy on both surfaces, up to 2 inches long.
- Flowers: Several in short heads on long leafless stalks from the axils of the leaves, white or purplish, less than 1/4 inch long.
- Sepals: 4, green, united below to form a tiny cup.
- Petals: 4, white or purplish, more or less united into 2 2-lipped lobes.
- Stamens: 4.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Small, dry, spherical, 2-parted.
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