| Author | Shuttleworth ex Bentham | |
| Distribution | Mostly in the southern Coastal Plain and Sandhills; scattered in the Piedmont. First collected in 1950 from a roadside in Brunswick County, and in 1951 as a nursery weed in Cumberland County. A specimen from McDowell County is misidentified.
Native of Florida and perhaps also southern AL and GA; established north to VA and west to TX; also CA. | |
| Abundance | Fairly common to locally quite common in the southern Coastal Plain; uncommon in the Sandhills; rare elsewhere. It is gradually increasing its range and abundance in NC and can be a somewhat noxious weed in some damp ground where it can compete with native herbs. | |
| Habitat | Roadsides, lawn weed, campus weed, nursery weed, waste ground, powerline -- more often in damp ground. | |
| Phenology | Flowering and fruiting April-August. | |
| Identification | Florida Hedge-nettle differs from our other Stachys species in its elliptical leaves that are squared off or slightly cordate at base. It is also characterized by its weedy nature, where it can occur in quite dense patches or stands. The inflorescence, a terminal thyrse (a raceme-like stalk with flowers in whorls at several levels/nodes), of numerous pink flowers, is quite similar to others in the genus; thus, use the leaf shape and weediness to identify it. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | Stachys is a large and complex genus that is still actively being worked on, and our understanding of the species is slowly being clarified. For interested readers, we recommend journal papers by Nelson (1981, 2008) and by Fleming et al. (2011). | |
| Other Common Name(s) | | |
| State Rank | SE? | |
| Global Rank | G5? | |
| State Status | | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | FAC link |
| USACE-emp | FAC link |
