What Wildflower Begins Blooming This Week?  (July week 1)

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This week, I’m featuring Mad-dog Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora) as one of our local wildflowers that begins to bloom at this time.

Identification Tips:

This perennial plant is 1–2½’ tall with occasional opposite branching.  The stems are light green to pale reddish-green, 4-angled, and hairless; they have a tendency to spread outward.  The blades of the opposite leaves are up to 3″ long and 2″ across; they are ovate to broadly lance-like, hairless, and coarsely serrated along the margins.  On the upper surface of each leaf blade, there is a conspicuous network of veins.  The petioles of the leaves are light green to pale reddish green, slender, and up to 1″ long.

Mad-dog Skullcap leaf

Both terminal and axillary racemes of flowers are produced by the upper stems.  Each slender raceme is up to 6″ long, consisting of about 6-7 pairs of flowers; the axillary racemes spread outward from their stems.  Underneath each flower, there is a short leafy bract.  Each flower is up to 1/3″ (8 mm.) in length, consisting of a tubular corolla that is pale blue, lavender, or white; it has short upper and lower lips.  The lower is lip is often white, while the upper lip is often a slightly darker color.  The pedicel of each flower is slender and short.  Usually, only a few flowers are in bloom at the same time in a raceme.  There is no noticeable floral scent.

Mad-dog Skullcap flower

Each flower is replaced by an oddly-shaped seed capsule that contains 4 nutlets.  This capsule consists of 2 lobes that are joined at the base, but spread slightly apart from each other at their tips; these lobes are somewhat flattened and round along their margins.

Mad-dog Skullcap seed capsules Photo credit: https://greenfarmacy.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/003.jpg

Mad-dog Skullcap seeds Photo credit: Tracey Slotta, hosted by the USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database

Folklore:

Mad-dog Skullcap is a magic herb that is worn by lovers to ensure fidelity.

Culinary and Medicinal Uses:

No known edible uses.

Due to its gentle relaxing effects, this plant became a popular treatment in the 1700s for hydrophobia or rabies, resulting in one of its common names, mad-dog weed.  A Dr. Van Derveer used it to prevent and treat rabies in both humans and animals, claiming to have prevented 4,000 people and 1,000 cattle from being infected after having been bitten by rabid dogs.  A number of scientists and doctors of the era questioned the validity of this treatment, and by 1852, the use of Mad-dog Skullcap as a treatment for rabies had been dismissed.

The Cherokee used it to stimulate a delayed menstrual cycle, to relieve breast pain, soothe nervous tension of all sorts, and to aid in childbirth.  This plant has been used in herbal medicine as a mild sedative and sleep promoter.

Mad-dog Skullcap is known as a slightly sedating nervine (normalizes functions of the nervous system by soothing and relieving tension) that is neurotrophorestorative (restores optimal function of neurons), anxiolytic (relieves anxiety), and spasmolytic (relieves muscle spasms).

Wildlife Value:

The flowers attract few insect visitors, but the Two-spotted Longhorn (Melissodes bimaculata), a long-tongued bee, is known to nectar from them.  Mad-dog Skullcap is the host plant for the caterpillars of Skullcap Skeletonizer Moth (Prochoreutis inflatella).  Mammals and geese won’t eat the foliage of this plant because of its bitter taste and mildly toxic properties.

Where Found Locally:

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