Venus' Pride

Houstonia purpurea L,. Sp. PI. 105. 1753
'Hedyotis umbellata Walt. Fl. Car. 85. 1788.
Hedyotis caroliniana Raeusch. Nom. ed. 3. 33. 1797.
Houstonia varians Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. 1: 86. 1803.
Houstonia pubescens Raf. Med. Repos. II. 5: 361. 1808.
Knoxia purpurea Lam.; Poir. in Lam. Encyc. Suppl. 3: 225. 1813.
Houstonia latifolia Willd.; R. & S. Syst. Veg. 3: 527. 1818.
Anotis purpurea G. Don, Gen. Hist. 3: 535. 1834.
Hedyotis purpurea T. & G. Fl. N. Am. 2: 40. 1841.
^Houstonia umbellata Walp. Rep. 1: 496. 1842.
Oldenlandia purpurea A. Gray. Man. ed. 2. 173. 1856.
Houstonia purpurea pubescens Britton, Mem. Torrey Club 4: 125. 1894.
Erect perennial, 2-4 dm. high, the stems solitary or numerous, stout, simple below, usually sparsely branched above, the branches ascending, quadrangular, pilose or hirsutulous, at least below, often glabrate above, the internodes mostly longer than the leaves; stipules scarious, 6 mm. long or shorter, broadly triangular, acute, sometimes cuspidate, entire or laciniate; basal leaves usually wanting at anthesis, on stout petioles half as long as the blades or shorter, the blades elliptic or oval, 1.5-2.5 cm. long, 0.5-1 cm. wide, obtuse or acutish at the apex and base, hirsutulous or glabrate above, glabrous and often purplish beneath, 1 -nerved; cauline leaves sessile or the lowest short-petiolate, mostly ovate to lance-oblong, sometimes rounded-ovate, oval, or elliptic, 2-6 cm. long, 0.8-3 cm. wide, obtuse to attenuate at the apex or rarely rounded, usually rounded at the base, thin, glabrous on the upper surface or hirsutulous, especially along the costa, paler beneath and glabrous or sometimes hirsutulous, usually ciliolate, 3or 5-nerved; flowers in dense small few-flowered terminal cymes, the pedicels 6 mm. long or shorter; hypanthium at anthesis about 1 mm. long, glabrous; calyx-lobes lance-linear, attenuate, at anthesis 3 times as long as the hypanthium or longer, in fruit much exceeding the capsule, rarely ciliolate; corolla funnelform, 6-8 mm. long, purple to nearly white, glabrous outside, the lobes ovate-triangular, usually less than half as long as the tube, more or less whitevillous within; anthers exserted; capsule subglobose, 2-3 mm. long, usually broader than long, slightly compressed, half inferior, rounded or retuse at the apex, the free portion glabrous; seeds oval, concavo-convex or subcrateriform, about 1 mm. long, peltate, coarsely scrobiculate, black.
Type locality: Virginia.
Distribution: Woods or fields, Maryland to Iowa, and southward to Georgia, Alabama, and Oklahoma.

Houstonia purpurea (formerly Hedyotis purpurea) is a species of flowering plant in the coffee family known by the common names Venus's pride, woodland bluet, and purple bluet. It is native to the eastern United States from eastern Texas and Oklahoma east to Florida and Pennsylvania, with scattered populations in Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan, New York State and New England.

There are three varieties of this species. The rarest, var. montana (Roan Mountain bluet) is a federally listed endangered species of the United States. It occurs only in the southern Appalachians along the border between Tennessee and North Carolina. It is named for Roan Mountain, one of a very few mountain peaks where it grows.

Flower Leaf