Please try our next iteration of the Michigan Flora Online here. Beginning on February 1, 2023, michiganflora.net will point to this new site.

The new site offers several benefits over the existing website, including real coordinate mapping, giving a clearer view of the density of documentation as well as more precision about plant distributions and their link to landforms. We will also have the ability to update species pages more regularly, both in terms of new collections and as more existing Michigan specimens are georeferenced. In addition, we have a better photo display, and offer indented keys.

A. A. Reznicek

All Images Enlarge Image

A Eurasian species rather frequently escaped from cultivation and well established, forming large prostrate colonies often in natural-appearing habitats. Forests (deciduous, coniferous, mixed, dry to swampy), especially along trails and in clearings; pine plantations; occasionally in disturbed open ground and on rocky outcrops; less often a weed in yards and disturbed ground. First collected in 1894 in Ingham Co.

The low habit and obcordate fruit are similar to those of V. chamaedrys, but besides the smaller flowers and shorter pedicels, V. officinalis has leaves more shallowly toothed, more broadly obtuse or even rounded at the apex, and with lateral veins obscure instead of strong all the way to the teeth (or sinuses). The inflorescence is usually rather densely glandular-pubescent.

Citation: