Scientific name: Scrophularia nodosa L.
Common name: Common Figwort
Description
Habit: A hairless perennial, to 1 m high.
Stems: Erect, square but not or scarcely winged, with smooth rhizome, with tuber-like swellings.
Leaves: Opposite, undivided, acute, very sharply toothed, oval.
Flowers: Purplish-brown, zygomorphic, hermaphrodite, in terminal panicles; calyx of 5 fused sepals, with 5 rounded lobes, with membranous margin less than 1 mm wide; corolla of 5 petals fused into short tube and 5 nearly equal lobes that are obscurely organised into 2 lips, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed; stamens 4 and 1 sterile, borne on corolla tube; ovary superior, 2-celled, style 1.
Fruits: A capsule, almost globular.
Habitat: Hedges, roadsides, wood-margins, rocky ground.Distribution: Locally frequent on the limestone, occasional elsewhere.
Native status: Native
Of conservation interest: No