OF JULY?

Hairy Tube-tongue (Justicia pilosella)

By Kent Ferguson

Hairy Tube-tongue is a warm-season, native perennial found in many regions of Texas and Oklahoma. It grows in open areas or shady places in many soil types from bottomlands to upland caliche sites.

This plant:

• Is a low-growing and an upright or sprawling forb with a woody base, reaching more than a foot tall in favorable conditions.

• Has several weak, hairy stems and can form small, dense colonies in pastures.

• Has opposite leaves, ovate to oval, that are one-half or three-fourths of an inch long, and a half-inch wide; with visible hairs and wavy margins.

• Has one-inch-long single flowers on the upper leaves or terminal stems, ranging from white to lavender, divided at the top with two notched lips at the tip. The lower lip is wider than it is long, with three deeply divided notched lobes.

Hairy Tube-tongue produces flowers almost until frost, and is important to many pollinators and butterfly species, especially the vesta crescent butterfly. It is a host for the larvae stage.

The forb is also palatable for livestock and whitetailed deer, providing nutritious forage throughout the growing season and especially during the dry, hot summers when most forbs have disappeared.

Hairy Tube-tongue is also catching on in residential landscapes as an ornamental in xeriscape projects, where it adds a touch of beauty to water-wise gardens. T C