Virginia Heartleaf

Plants of Hexastylis virginica with small, cylindric-urceolate calices have been treated as a distinct species, H . memmingeri . The two calyx types are often found in the same population, however, so H . memmingeri seems unworthy of taxonomic recognition at any rank.

Prior to the study by H. L. Blomquist (1957), many botanists interpreted Hexastylis virginica in a very broad sense, so old herbarium specimens of many other species of Hexastylis are often annotated as H . virginica .

The Cherokee used Hexastylis virginica medicinally to stop blood from passing (D. E. Moerman 1986, as Asarum virginicum ).

Rhizomes: internodes short, leaves crowded at rhizome apex. Leaf blade variegate or not, cordate, subcordate, or subreniform. Flowers: calyx tube cylindric to narrowly cylindric-urceolate, sometimes with prominent transverse ridge just below sinuses, 8-15 × 6-12 mm, inner surface with high reticulations, lobes erect or weakly spreading, 2-4 × 7-9 mm, adaxially puberulent; stamen connective not extending beyond pollen sacs; ovary ca. 1/3-inferior; ovules 8 per locule; styles notched at apex. 2 n = 26.

Ky., Md., N.C., Tenn., Va., W.Va.

Flowering spring (Apr-Jun).

Deciduous and mixed deciduous-conifer forests; 0-700m.

Asarum virginicum Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 442. 1753; A. memmingeri Ashe; Hexastylis memmingeri (Ashe) Small