Woundwort
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
| Woundwort | ||||||||||||
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| Hedge Woundwort (Stachys sylvatica) | ||||||||||||
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About 300 species, including: |
The woundworts form a genus of about 300 species of annual and perennial herbaceous plants and shrubs in the family Lamiaceae. The distribution of the genus covers Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and North America.
The stems vary from 50-300 cm tall, with simple, opposite triangular leaves 1-14 cm long with serrated margins; in most species the leaves are softly hairy. The flowers are 1.2 cm long, clustered in the axils of the leaves on the upper part of the stem, the corolla 5-lobed with the top lobe forming a 'hood', varying from white to pink, purple, red or pale yellow.
One species, the Chinese artichoke (S. affinis), is grown for its edible tuber.
The name of the plant derives from its past use in herbal medicine for the treatment of wounds.
"General Woundwort", named after the plant, is a rabbit in the novel Watership Down by Richard Adams.nl:Andoorn
