Verbena hastata(American blue vervain, "Hokogatahanagasa")
Japanese name: ホコガタハナガサ（矛形花笠） Scientific name:Verbena hastata
[Overview]
A perennial growing to about 60–120 cm tall.
It prefers moist places, and in its native range it is found in damp pastures and along riverbanks.
The stem is square in cross section, hairy, branched in the upper part, and often tinged with red.
The leaves are simple and opposite, lanceolate to ovate, up to 15 cm long and 3 cm wide, sometimes with a pair of lateral lobes at the base.
The leaf margins have sharp teeth.
Spike-like inflorescences 5–15 cm long gather in a panicle at the stem tips, and several flowers open at a time, in order from the bottom.
The flowers are blue-purple, rarely white, and the corolla is 5-lobed.
