In late May, while walking along the Katy Crossing Trail at San Gabriel Park in Georgetown, I noticed a plant I hadn’t seen before. It stood well above the ground cover, with upright spikes of small pink-lavender flowers swaying in the breeze. With my long 200–600 mm lens, I stepped back a few paces and let it do the work, compressing the whole stand into the soft wash of green and lavender you see here.
I did not photograph any pollinators that day, but I have no doubt these flowers get plenty of visitors. I also caught an unmistakable mint scent as I leaned in closer. That scent, along with the square, downy stems, was my first clue. iNaturalist confirmed the rest: American Germander (Teucrium canadense), a native member of the mint family (Lamiaceae) that grows across nearly all of the lower 48 states and much of Canada.
American Germander is a perennial that spreads by underground rhizomes, which is why it so often shows up as a dense colony rather than a single plant. Gardeners sometimes call it aggressive for that reason. It likes its feet damp — moist thickets, ditches, woodland edges, and stream margins — so the banks of the San Gabriel River suit it well. The plants typically stand 1 to 4 feet (30–120 cm) tall, occasionally reaching about 5 feet (1.5 m). The opposite leaves are toothed, softly hairy, and up to 5 inches (13 cm) long, with a pale gray-white underside. In Texas, it blooms from May into August, and each spike opens from the bottom up, so a single stem carries open flowers below and tight buds above. You can see that clearly in the photo.
The flowers, each less than an inch (about 1–2 cm) long, are the real curiosity. Most mint-family flowers have two lips: a hood above and a landing platform below. In germander, the upper lip is so reduced — split into two small pointed lobes pushed off to the sides — that the flower looks as if it has only one lip. Instead of hiding under a hood, the stamens and style arch up and out over the broad, purple-spotted lower lip. That lower lip works as a landing pad: a bee settles on it to reach the nectar, and the exposed anthers brush pollen onto its back. Bumblebees, honey bees, leaf-cutter bees, and skipper butterflies are all regular customers. Deer and rabbits, on the other hand, leave the plant alone because its leaves are bitter.
The genus name has its own story. Teucrium is said to honor Teucer, a legendary king of Troy, who supposedly used a germander to treat stomach ailments. Closer to home, Native Americans steeped the leaves as a tea and used them as a poultice for sores.
What stays with me from that morning is how a plant can be common across an entire continent and still be new to me. It took a windy walk and a long lens to notice it standing there, tall and swaying, open to the sky. Now, I need to plan a return with my macro lens and capture the details in the flowers.
That is the story behind the shots. For more like this, enjoy these related stories: American Germander, FlowerHour, Georgetown, Katy Crossing, One Step, San Gabriel Park, Texas, and Wildflowers. Until the next shoot, keep chasing the light and the wonders it reveals.
- Posted for Terri’s Flower Hour #49.
- Posted for Pepper’s One Step at a Time #28.
Sources:
- Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center — Native Plant Database, Teucrium canadense (American Germander) — https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=TECA3
- Minnesota Wildflowers — Teucrium canadense (Germander) — https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/germander
- GrowIt BuildIT — American Germander, Teucrium canadense — https://growitbuildit.com/american-germander-teucrium-canadense/
- Bleeding Heartland — Iowa Wildflower Wednesday: American or Canada Germander (quoting Illinois Wildflowers) — https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2021/07/21/iowa-wildflower-wednesday-american-or-canada-germander-wood-sage/
- Wikipedia — Teucrium canadense — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teucrium_canadense
- City of Georgetown, Texas — San Gabriel Park — https://parks.georgetown.org/san-gabriel-park/
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Pepper
Two beautiful images taken at the perfect aperture to blur the background. Well done, Egidio.
Anita
A beautiful new discovery, Egidio! It’s amazing how something can be right there and still be completely new to us. That’s one of the things I find so rewarding about photography.