White Turtlehead

''Chelone glabra'', or white turtlehead, is a herbaceous species of

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclu ...

native to North America. Its native range extends from

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic Canada, Atlantic region. The province comprises t ...

and from

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

. Its common name comes from the appearance of its flower petals, which resemble the head of a

tortoise Tortoises () are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin: ''tortoise''). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like oth ...

. In fact, in Greek, chelone means "tortoise" and was the name of a

nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label= Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ...

who refused to attend the wedding of

Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek reli ...

and was turned into a turtle as punishment. Its natural habitat is wet areas, such as

riparian forests A riparian forest or riparian woodland is a forested or wooded area of land adjacent to a body of water such as a river, stream, pond, lake, marshland, estuary, canal, sink or reservoir. Etymology The term riparian comes from the Latin word ' ...

and swamps. Its classification at the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

level has in the past been controversial, but as a result of DNA sequence studies, it is now regarded as belonging to family

Plantaginaceae Plantaginaceae, the plantain family, is a large, diverse family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales that includes common flowers such as snapdragon and foxglove. It is unrelated to the banana-like fruit also called "plantain." In older cl ...

(the plantain family). In early taxonomic treatments the species was divided into a number of subspecific categories but more recent studies indicate no morphological or genetic basis for these taxonomic categories. ^{1/sup>

Description and ecology

This species has opposite, simple leaves, on stout, upright stems. The flowers are white, borne in late summer and early fall.

It is the primary plant on which the Baltimore checkerspot butterfly will lay its eggs (although the butterfly to some extent will use a few other species).

''Chelone glabra'' is a popular browse plant for deer. It is also a foodplant for the sawflies '' Macrophya nigra'' and '' Tenthredo grandis'' (Hymenoptera: Tenthredinidae), and a flea beetle in the genus Dibolia

''Dibolia'' is a genus of flea beetles in the family Chrysomelidae. There are some 60 described species worldwide.https://www.zin.ru/animalia/coleoptera/addpages/Nadein/Dibolia.htm

Selected species

* '' Dibolia alpestris'' Mohr, 1981
* '' Di ...
(Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) has also been shown to feed on it.

Uses

It has been used as a method of birth control by Abenaki people.

References

11. Allan D. Nelson; Wayne J. Elisens (1999). "Polyploid evolution and biogeography in Chelone (Scrophulariaceae): morphological and isozyme evidence". ''American Journal of Botany''. Botanical Society of America. 86(10): 1487–1501. doi:10.2307/2656929. JSTOR 2656929. PMID

PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain the ...
10523288.

External links

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Plantaginaceae
Flora of Eastern Canada
Flora of the Northeastern United States
Flora of the Southeastern United States
Flora of the Appalachian Mountains
Flora of the Great Lakes region (North America)
Plants described in 1753
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
Flora of the North-Central United States}