Japanese name: アレチハナガサ（荒地花笠） Scientific name:Verbena brasiliensis
[Overview]
A perennial growing to about 1.5 m tall, found on sunny bare ground, gravelly ground and grasslands.
The whole plant has stiff hairs and is rough to the touch.
The stem is square in cross section and branches in the upper part.
The hairs on the stem are sparse except near the inflorescence.
The leaves are simple and opposite, narrowly elliptic.
On the upper surface of the leaves the veins are sunken, and the leaf margins are toothed.
The leaf base does not clasp the stem.
Many spike-like inflorescences 2–3 cm long arise at the stem tips.
The flowers are pale purple, 2–3 mm across, and the corolla is 5-lobed.
In the fruiting period the spikes elongate into a cylindrical shape.
[History]
It was first recorded in Fukuoka and Kanagawa around 1957.
