Intro: Erect perennial of stream banks, seeps and swamp forests.

Stems: Stems simple or sparingly branched, smooth.

Leaves: Leaves opposite, short petiolate or subsessile, lance-shaped tapering to a sharp tip, 4-7 in. long, toothed.

Inforescence:

Flowers: Flowers in dense terminal spikes, each resting on a leafy bract that mostly conceals the stalk; white but pink-tinged at tip; 1--1½ in. long; bilaterally symmetric; inflated-tubular and consisting of a hoodlike upper lip, a 3-lobed lower lip bearing a white or yellowish beard, 4 fertile stamens and a single green-tipped sterile stamen.

Fruits: Fruit a broadly oval capsule.

Comments:

Height: 2-5 ft.

plant sale text: Chelone glabra is best grown in moist to wet, rich, humusy soils in part shade; too much shade, and it may require staking. White turtlehead is found throughout Eastern North America. It is usually found along moist streams, and bottomlands. It spreads slowly by rhizomes and can eventually make small stands in the right conditions. The distinctive shape of its flower gives the plant its common and genus name. Chelone is derived from Greek for tortoise. The flowers attract bees, hummingbirds, and some lepidoptera.

bloom table text:

description: Erect perennial of stream banks, seeps and swamp forests.

stems: Stems simple or sparingly branched, smooth.

leaves: Leaves opposite, short petiolate or subsessile, lance-shaped tapering to a sharp tip, 4-7 in. long, toothed.

inflorescence:

flowers: Flowers in dense terminal spikes, each resting on a leafy bract that mostly conceals the stalk; white but pink-tinged at tip; 1--1½ in. long; bilaterally symmetric; inflated-tubular and consisting of a hoodlike upper lip, a 3-lobed lower lip bearing a white or yellowish beard, 4 fertile stamens and a single green-tipped sterile stamen.

fruits: Fruit a broadly oval capsule.

comments:

cultural notes:

germination code:

native range: eastern North America