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Oregano - Origanum vulgare
Other Names:
Wild Marjoram
General Description
Perennial from creeping rhizomes, 30-70 cm tall. Stems generally simple below the inflorescence except for the axillary fascicles of small leaves; stem and the margins and lower surfaces of leaves loosely hairy. Leaf blades 1.5-3 cm long, mostly ovate or deltoid-ovate, cauline only, margins entire or nearly so, evidently purple-tipped, rather short-petiolate, well distributed along the stem and only reduced toward the inflorescence. Bracts mostly elliptic or rhombic to obovate; calyx 2.5-5 mm long, the lance-triangular or nearly ovate teeth shroter than the tube and generally purplish; corolla ca. 5 mm long (Hitchcock, 1959, Vasc. Pl. Pacific Northwest, Part 4).
Range Comments
Sporadic and relatively infrequently established in parts of western and eastern North America, particularly the New England area (Kartesz 2009).
Observations in Montana Natural Heritage Program Database
Number of Observations: 5
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Relative Density
Recency
(Observations spanning multiple months or years are excluded from time charts)
Habitat
Mostly as roadside weeds in North America (Hitchcock 1959).
Ecology
POLLINATORS The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap:
Bombus melanopygus,
Bombus mixtus, and
Bombus occidentalis (Thorp et al. 1983).
Management
Stewardship Responsibility
References
- Literature Cited AboveLegend:
View Online Publication
Thorp, R.W., D.S. Horning, and L.L. Dunning. 1983. Bumble bees and cuckoo bumble bees of California (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Bulletin of the California Insect Survey 23:1-79.
- Additional ReferencesLegend: View Online Publication
Do you know of a citation we're missing?- Lesica, P., M.T. Lavin, and P.F. Stickney. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. Fort Worth, TX: BRIT Press. viii + 771 p.
- Lesica, P., M.T. Lavin, and P.F. Stickney. 2022. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants, Second Edition. Fort Worth, TX: BRIT Press. viii + 779 p.
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