Vascular Plants of North Carolina
Account for Purpletop Vervain - Verbena incompta   P.W. Michael
Members of Verbenaceae:
Members of Verbena with account distribution info or public map:
Google Images
Section 6 » Order Lamiales » Family Verbenaceae
Show/Hide Synonym
AuthorP.W. Michael
DistributionCollected from the Coastal Plain and lower Piedmont, with a large central gap. The website editors have mapped only those specimens that have been annotated to V. incompta from V. bonariensis. There may be other "bonariensis" specimens that need to be transferred from that species account, and thus reducing its NC distribution.

Native of South America; in N.A. mostly VA to MO south to FL and TX; scattered elsewhere.
AbundanceProbably rare to uncommon, but much doubt still remains about its distribution and abundance versus V. bonariensis.
HabitatFields, cropfields, pasture, roadsides.
PhenologyFlowering and fruiting May-October.
IdentificationThis species apparently looks very much like V. bonariensis, which see, but with a shorter corolla tube and non-glandular stems, peduncles, and calyces; V. bonariensis has sticky upper stems, peduncles, and calyx lobes. Weakley (2018) also says that this species has the basal and midstem leaves ovate to obovate, versus narrower (mostly lanceolate or oblanceolate) such leaves in V. bonariensis.
Taxonomic CommentsThis species has been recently split from V. bonariensis, and much remains to be known how to separate these two.

Other Common Name(s)
State RankSE
Global RankGNR
State Status
US Status
USACE-agcpFACU link
USACE-empFACU link
County Map - click on a county to view source of record.
Select a source
AllHerbaria
Website
Select an occurrence type
AllCollection_non_naturalOther_non_natural