Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Verbena incompta
Common name
Purpletop
Family
Verbenaceae
Where found
Woodland, grassy areas, waste lands, cultivated areas and roadsides. Widespread.
Notes
Introduced perennial herb to 2 m high. Stems conspicuously 4-angled in cross section, with prominent long hairs. Leaves opposite each other, 4–15 cm long, 6–30 mm wide, covered with coarse lines or furrows, upper surface rough and more or less hairy with short hairs, lower surface with longer hairs, tips pointed, margins coarsely and irregularly toothed to incised, entire towards the base, bases partly stem clasping. Flowers blue or mauve to reddish purple, 2.5–3.5 mm long, tubular, the tube about 2.5 mm long, with 5 lobes. Flower tubes only slightly longer than the calyx. Calyx 5-toothed. Bracts, calyx and flower stalks only occasionally with a few stalked glands. Flowers in loose elongated many-flowered spike-like clusters. Flowers mainly October–January.
Included in Verbena bonariensis var. bonariensis in Vic.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Verbena~incompta (accessed 10 February, 2021)
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