It grows upright, with thick, sharply square, succulent stems up to 150 cm tall from a horizontal rootstock. Its leaves are opposite, ovate at the base and lanceolate at the tip, all having toothed margins. The flowers are in loose cymes in oblong or pyramidal panicles. The individual flowers are globular, with five green sepals encircling green or purple petals, giving way to an egg-shaped seed capsule.[3]
First year Scrophularia nodosa plant: swollen hypocotyl/stem with scars from the first four pairs of leaves (1-4). From (Warming 1884)
The plant was thought, by the doctrine of signatures, to be able to cure the throat disease scrofula because of the throat-like shape of its flowers.[5]
References
^Mills, S., The Complete Guide to Modern Herbalism, Thorsons, Great Britain, 1994.
^The History of the British Flora, A Factual Basis for Phytogeography by Sir Harry Godwin, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, ISBN0 521 20254 X, 1975 edition page 318
