Al Schneider's Rocky Mountains Plant Descriptions

Britton's Skullcap
Scutellaria brittonii
Mint family (Lamiaceae)

Britton's Skullcap is almost exclusively a Colorado Eastern Slope species growing from relatively low elevations in the mountains down into the plains. Flowers are paired and have two prominent lips; the lower lip has white ribbing. Linnaeus named this in 1753. "Scutell" is Latin for "dish" and alludes to the protruding lower dish-like lip of the flower. The similar Skullcap (Scutellaria galericulata) is found in similar habitats and range but it also continues on to the Pacific coast and across the northern United States.


©2008 Patrick Alexander

Description

plants spreading from knotty . Stems to 10" tall usually branched at base, to slightly hairy. Upper leaves and often twice as long as lower. Hairs fringed with very short hairs, some sticky, smooth on lower surface. Deep violet-blue flowers over an inch long, in axils with short , prominent hood (), curved tube.

Field Marks

Twin violet-blue tubular flowers with prominent skullcaps as the upper lip of the flower.

© Al Schneider

A galea is an overhanging, helmet-shaped, part of the flower that protects the reproductive parts.

A perennial plant lives and blooms for many years.

pedicel -- The stem of a single flower.

sessile -- attached without a stalk. For example, a leaf that clasps the stalk. A petiolate leaf has a stalk.

genus -- A subdivision of a botanical Family in which all members have a significant number of similar characteristics.

glabrous -- smooth, glossy, having no bristles or hair-like structures. Bald.

rhizome -- root-like stems that may either grow horizontally at the soil surface or in other orientations underground.