Lepechinia hastata

This species is an aromatic perennial shrub growing tall. The stems are thick and closely pubescent. Like in most Lamiaceae, the leaves are arranged opposite, attached to the stem by a petiole around long. The upper leaves towards the inflorescence are ovate and sessile. The leaves grow up to long and wide. The leaves are shaped hastate, with the leaf base cordate to auriculate, the leaf tip acute, and covered in velvety trichomes and raised veins. The inflorescence is an open panicle, with lateral branches that are 2 to 3 times cymosely branched. The bracts are linear and measure up to long. The flowers emerge in axillary, cymose clusters, borne on pedicels that elongate with age and measure about at anthesis. The calyx consists of 5 sepals that are fused at the base, the calyx tube long at anthesis, while the corolla is 4-lobed, long and colored a purple-magenta. The fruit is divided into 4 nutlets, colored a glossy black, about long and wide. == Taxonomy ==

Taxonomic history This species was first described as Sphacele hastata by Asa Gray in 1862, from plants collected by the United States Exploring Expedition led by Charles Wilkes. The type locality is Mouna Haleakala on Maui, at high elevations. In 1940, botanist Carl Epling, who was the major authority on the Lamiaceae, renamed S. hastata into Lepechinia hastata, and based on collections by Gentry, noted their presence in the oak-pine forests of the Sierra de La Laguna of the Cape region of Baja California Sur.The plants on Socorro Island were discovered by Ivan M. Johnston in 1931 and placed as L. hastata proper, with Lepechinia expert Carl Epling concurring with the identification, but later examination of flowering plants on Socorro in 1989 led to Reid Moran separating the Socorro plants as their own subspecies due to morphological differences. Placement Epling placed L. hastata in the section Thyrsiflorae, which only has one other species, L. nelsonii, from Jalisco and Guerrero, Mexico. The section is distinguished by the open paniculate structure of the inflorescence which is 2 to 3 times cymosely branched. The two species are most similar in their flowers and inflorescences, but differ in their foliage, as L. nelsonii has elliptic or lanceolate leaves that are sessile. Section Thyrsiflorae is most closely allied to the section Speciosae, with L. hastata being most similar in some aspects to that section's L. salviae. Subdivisions • Lepechinia hastata subsp. hastata — The autonymic subspecies. Found in Baja California Sur and the Hawaiian Islands. • Lepechinia hastata subsp. socorrensis Moran — Endemic to Socorro Island. This species is distinguished by its white-colored flowers, more densely tomentose and conspicuously grayer foliage, and smaller size in terms of its leaves, inflorescence, and floral parts. == Distribution and habitat ==

Mexico In Baja California Sur, subspecies hastata is distributed in the Cape region at the tip of the peninsula, at high elevations in the Sierra de La Laguna. It is found growing in shaded canyons and the Sierra de la Laguna pine–oak forests. and one of the only other outliers, Lepechinia stellata (now a synonym of L. chilensis), was only known from a fragmentary herbarium record from Réunion Island, as the original type specimen was lost. A taxonomic study of the genus conducted in 2011 suggests that the occurrences from Réunion and Hawaii are probably human introductions. == Uses ==

This species has been used historically as a remedy to treat uterine infections. In cultivation, it is sometimes erroneously named as Lepechinia salviae, a similar but distinct species from Chile. == See also ==