Verbena hastata

Habitat: Moist to wet fields and meadows, fens, calcareous spring marshes, riverbanks, and seasonally exposed rock, sand, or gravel bars and shores. Frequent in the mountains; infrequent in the piedmont; rare in the coastal Plain.

Wildlife Value: Cardinals, sparrows, and juncos eat the seeds. Cottontail rabbits eat the foliage, however, most mammals avoid its bitter taste. Larval host plant for verbena moth and the common buckeye butterfly. Long and short-tongued bees collect the nectar and sometimes the pollen. Other bee pollinators include epoline cuckoo bees, eucerine miner bees, halictid bees, and the verbena bee (a specialist pollinator). In addition, the thread-waisted wasp, bee flies, thick-headed flies and golden soldier beetle are also known to all visit blue vervain.