verbena

• WordNet 3.6
  • n verbena any of numerous tropical or subtropical American plants of the genus Verbena grown for their showy spikes of variously colored flowers
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• • n Verbena (Bot) A genus of herbaceous plants of which several species are extensively cultivated for the great beauty of their flowers; vervain.☞ Verbena, or vervain, was used by the Greeks, the Romans, and the Druids, in their sacred rites. Brewer.
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• • n verbena A genus of plants, type of the order Verbenaceæ and tribe Verbeneæ. It is characterized by flowers sessilein an elongated or flattened spike, and by a dry fruit with four one-seeded nutlets or cells iucluded within an unchanged tubular calyx. There are about SO specie?, mostly American. One, V. officinalis, is widely dispersed over warm and temperate parts of the Old World; another, V. Bonariensis, is naturalized in Africa and Asia; one only, V. supina, is peculiar to the Old World, and occurs in the Mediterranean region from the Canary Islands to western Asia; another, V. macrostachya, is confined to Australia. They are diffuse decumbent or erect summer-flowering herbs (shrubby in a few South American species), commonly villous with unbranched hairs. Their leaves are usually opposite, and incised or dissected; their flowers are sessile, and solitary in the axils of the narrow bracts of a terminal spike. The spikes are compact and thick, or long and slender, sometimes corymbed or panic-led. About 14 species are natives of the United States, mostly weedy and small-flowered; 5 of these occur within the northeastern States, of which the principal are V. hastata, the blue, and V. urticæfolia, the white vervain, tall plants with long panicled or clustered spikes. For V. officinalis, the chief introduced species, see vervain, herb of the cross (under herb), pigeon's-grass, simpler's-joy, and cut under laciniate. Four southwestern species produce large showy pink or purplish flower-clusters, which elongate into spikes in fruit; among these V. bipinnatifida (V. montana) and V. Aubletia are sometimes cultivated. The latter is a creeping and spreading perennial with incised leaves, parent of many garden hybrids; it occurs in open places from Florida to Illinois, Arkansas, and Mexico, in nature with rosecolored, purple, or lilac flowers. The numerous cultivated verbenas, very popular in the United States from their brilliant and continuous bloom and from their growth in masses, are largely de-rived from the South American species V. chamædrifolia, V. phlogifolia, V. teucrioides, and V. crinoides, in nature respectively scarlet, rose-colored, white, and lilac-purple. In cultivation they include all colors except yellow and pure blue; many are striped; and the best have a distinct eye, or bright central spot. Several species are also very fragrant, especially V. teucrioides. V. venosa is more often cultivated in England.
  • n verbena [lowercase] A plant of this genus
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• • n Verbena ver-bē′na a genus of plants of natural order Verbenaceæ, cultivated for their fragrance or beauty: vervain
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