Plant of the day is: Leonurus quinquelobatus or motherwort
I don't have a good common name for you on this one because its pretty difficult to find a lot of information on. Some of the best stuff I can find is here: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30070964#page/135/mode/1up.
A huge shout-out to the tireless workers digitizing some of these texts. That is BORING work but so important. Thank you.
Taxonomy/etc.: Leonorus is a pretty small genus of only about 25 recognized species in the Lamiaceae or mint family. It's fascinating (for me) looking back through botanical texts like the above for odd tidbits. In this one, he/she mentions L. villosus as being an unacceptable synonym for L.quinquelobatus because of a questionable herbarium sample that was garden grown with damaged stems and crisped leaves. The leaves you see coming out of the inflorescence below generally only show about 3 lobes while the leaves down the steam show the 5 lobed look. Quinquelobatus assuredly means 5 lobes, in reference to the leaf.
Description: It's in the description page above. I have a headache.
Culture/etc: It's a mint, kinda. A lot of members of this family tend to be very easy to care for BUT ...be warned. Members of this family can also be weedy. L. cardiaca is in fact an introduced species throughout ...most of North America. http://www.invasiveplantatlas.org/subject.html?sub=5923.
Growing a closely related cousin of this certainly raises some caution signs.
Range: Soviet Union...ish. I think. Harder to find info for this than L. cardiaca. Drop into a genus with just a couple of well documented species and stuff starts getting difficult. Of late I've really realized just how MUCH work there is to do in the plant world. Important work. Anyways, it might be tough to see this plant but if you keep an eye out on your outside adventures you might just bump into its invader cousin L. cardiaca.
Fun Fact!: Motherwort because it is used in Chinese medicine and has been used to treat UTI's and the like. Supposedly has some alkaloids that are nice sedatives to rival Valeriana (valerian).
Sadly not good CC material showing plant in habit or the true leaves. :(.
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