Gratiola pilosa, commonly known as shaggy hedge-hyssop, is a perennial forb in the family Plantaginaceae native to the United States.
Gratiola pilosa is a stiff, erect, usually unbranched perennial herb, growing 10âÂÂ70 cm tall, with pilose stems about 1âÂÂ2 mm in diameter. The leaves are opposite, sessile, and ovate to ovate-lanceolate, measuring 1.2âÂÂ2 cm long and 5âÂÂ11 mm wide. They are entire or irregularly serrate, hairy, and often dotted with glandular punctations. Flowers are solitary in the axils of leafy bracts, typically with a pair of small bractlets just below the calyx. The flowers are sessile or nearly so, with pedicels less than 1 mm long. The sepals are linear to linear-lanceolate, 3âÂÂ7 mm long, pubescent, and subequal, usually exceeded by linear bractlets. The corolla is small, 6âÂÂ8 mm long, white or tinged with lavender. The upper two stamens are fertile, while the lower two are rudimentary or absent; anthers often have a transverse orientation and may be topped with a membranous connective. The fruit is a smooth, conical to globose capsule, 4âÂÂ5 mm long.
It is found from New Jersey south to South Florida, west to East Texas, and northward in the interior to Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and eastern Oklahoma. It grows in wet pine savannas, marshes, and other wet areas.