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American bugleweed flowers form in whorls of the axils of the middle and upper leaves. Individual flowers are 1/8" across, white with pinkish-purple spots, with a calyx about as long as floral tube with five teeth; the distal end of the short tubular corolla has five sharply-pointed, narrowly-triangular lobes. The two stamens with purple anthers and single style project well outside the mouth of the corolla. The fruits are four, flat-topped nutlets that form in the cup of the calyx. The deep, narrow lobes of the lower leaves are a characteristic of this species; they are not present in the other Lycopus species in Jackson Park.

Lycopus

Lycopus americanus

American bugleweed [Blooms: Jul-Sep]

Northern bugleweed can be up to 2.5' tall; the stem is unbranched, square in section, and light green. The leaves are opposite, 1.5-4" long and a third as wide, elliptical in outline with 5-9 coarse, sharply-pointed marginal teeth on each side of the leaf. Each pair of opposite leaves is oriented at 90° to the pairs above and below. The flowers occur in whorls in the axils of the middle and upper leaves. Individual flowers are about 1/8" long. They have a light green, very short (1 mm) calyx with 4-5 triangular teeth; a white, tubular corolla with four (or five) lobes, the uppermost notched at the tip or sometimes in two parts; two stamens with purple anthers extending just out of the corolla tube; and a style with a bifurcated tip. The fruit is four nutlets with a bumpy upper surface and a depressed center, cupped in the calyx.

Lycopus

Lycopus uniflorus

northern bugleweed [Blooms: Jul-Aug]