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Skullcap

Skullcap

Scutellaria galericulata

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How common: Common

Skullcap is a medium-sized, long-lived wildflower of damp ground with blue, two-lipped tubular flowers that come in pairs. It is often seen along water edges and other wet places across the cooler parts of Europe, Asia and North America.

Did you know?

  • Its name comes from the cap-like bump on the small cup behind each flower.
  • The stem is square, a common feature in mint relatives.

About the species

Identification

Perennial 15–50 cm tall. Stem square, little or no branching, often reddish low down. Leaves are in pairs along the stem, short-stalked, 2–5 cm, narrow and oval with a pointed tip; the base rounded or slightly heart-shaped; edges with a few blunt teeth. Blue to violet-blue flowers 1–2 cm long, with a curved tube and a hooded upper part, grow in widely spaced pairs up the upper stem; on lower flowers the small leaf-like pieces beside them are longer than the flowers. The small cup behind the flower shows a clear bump like a little cap. Fruit splits into four small hard seeds. A similar skullcap with arrowhead leaves has small side points; this one does not. Flowers in Finland in July–August.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

shore

Flowering

Jul–Aug

About the habitat

Favors wet places such as lake and river banks, wet meadows, ditches and stream edges, and rich swampy woods. Common throughout Finland, rare in northernmost Lapland.

Sources

Photo: Kian Hayles-Cotton, CC0 1.0 https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/6273797301

Text: Pinkka: BIO-503 Suomen kasvisto ja kasvillisuus - Sisävedet: rantaniityt, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39455

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhtavuohennokka

See also