Mosla dianthera (Buch.-Ham. ex Roxb.) Maxim.

Miniature Beefsteak Plant

Herb

Annual

Vascular

Miniature Beefsteak Plant is an introduced herbaceous annual in the Mint family (Lamiaceae). It is native to temperate and tropical Asia, and was first reported from North America based on a collection from McCreary County, Kentucky in 1939. In Alabama in occurs in the northern half of the state. Miniature Beefsteak Plant grows in moist to wet disturbed sites such as in roadsides ditches, in low pastures, along trails, on road margins, and on the banks of streams. It is an annual from a tap root. The stems are 1-3 feet in height, usually much branched, square in cross section, green or purplish in color, and nearly glabrous. Leaves are opposite, petiolate, ovate- to rhombic-lanceolate in outline, short pubescent to nearly glabrous above, glabrous below with sparse impressed glands, and with irregularly serrate to nearly entire margins. All parts of the plant emit a musty odor when damaged. Flowers are produced in two-flowered verticillasters in terminal racemes. Individual flowers are produced on 1-4 mm finely puberulent pedicels. The calyx is 10-veined and 2-lipped. The upper lip is 3-toothed with the middle tooth shorter than the lateral, and the lower lip is 2-toothed. The corolla is slightly 2-lipped, pale purplish in color, and puberulent. The upper lip is emarginate, and the lower lip is 3-lobed with the lateral lobes smaller than middle lobe. The fruit is a gray-brown nutlet. Miniature Beefsteak Plant is listed as an invasive species in Georgia and Kentucky.—A. Diamond.

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Not Native

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