Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

BRADBURY BEEBALM

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Monarda bradburiana Beck

Cherokee County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 10-24 inches

Family: Lamiaceae - Mint Family

Flowering Period: May, June, July

Also Called:

Eastern beebalm.

Stems:

Erect, simple or sparingly branched, glabrous to sparsely soft-hairy; internodes as long or longer than subtending leaves.

Leaves:

Opposite, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 1.6 to 3.6 inches long, .4 to 1.2 inch wide, dotted, glabrous or rarely soft-hairy; margins toothed or entire, fringed; tip tapering to point; stalk to 1/5 inch long; lower leaves often shorter and wider than upper leaves.

Inflorescences:

Heads, solitary, terminal; bracts ovate-lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 2/5 to 4/5 inch long, 1/8 to 1/2 inch wide, green or purplish, spreading or bent downward; tips narrowly pointed; margins entire, fringed.

Flowers:

Calyx tubular, curved, 5-toothed, 1/4 to 1/2 inch long, mostly glabrous outside, stiff-hairy in throat; corolla 2-lipped, 1 to 1.5 inch long, white or pale rose-purple, lightly pubescent outside; upper lip erect, sickle-shaped, bearded inside near tip; lower lip purple-dotted, 3-lobed, middle lobe narrow, upturned; stamens 2, conspicuously protruding from under upper lip.

Fruits:

Nutlets, 4,rounded at tip, pointed at base, smooth, brown, each 1-seeded.

Habitat:

Rocky, wooded hillsides and thickets.

Distribution:

Southeast 1/4 Kansas.

Uses:

The leaves are sometimes used to prepare a tea.

Comments:

Named for John Bradbury, a botanical explorer in the Mississippi Valley region. Bradbury beebalm is pollinated by bees and butterflies.

Bradbury beebalm inflorescence