Creeping Eryngo

Eryngium prostratum Nutt.; DC. Prodr. 4: 92. 1830
Slrebanthus auriculalus Raf. Bull. Bot. Seringe 1: 218. 1830.
Streblanthus auriculalus Raf. Atl. Jour. 149. 1832.
Streblanthus helerophvlus Raf. New Fl. 4: 35. 1838.
Eryngium Baldwinii var. (3 T. & G. Fl. N. Am. 1 : 605. 1840.
Eryngium prostratum var. foliosum Wood, Class-Book, ed. 1861. 378. 1861.
Low, prostrate or ascending, glabrous perennials, 1.5-7 dm. high, from a fascicle of fibrous roots, the stems very slender, simple or somewhat branched above; basal leaves ovate to lanceolate, 15-55 mm. long, 7-25 mm. broad, simple or palmately lobed, the margins entire or irregularly and remotely dentate, the venation reticulate; petioles slender, 1-8 cm. long; cauline leaves like the basal, reduced, clustered at the nodes, sessile upwards; inflorescence of elongated monochasia bearing small, numerous heads on filiform axillary peduncles, the flowers few; heads often blue, ovoid to ovoid-cylindric, 4—9 mm. long, 3-4 mm. broad; bracts 5-10, foliaceous, reflexed, lanceolate, 2-12 mm. long, acute, equaling the heads; bractlets narrowly subulate, about 1 mm. long, acute, shorter than the fruit; coma wanting; sepals ovate to semiorbicular, about 0.8 mm. long, obtuse, mucronulate; petals blue, obovate-spatulate, 1 mm. long; styles exceeding the sepals; fruit subglobose, 2 mm. in diameter, sparsely covered with low white tubercles.
Type locality: "In Americae bor. Territoria Arkansano," Nuttall.
Distribution: Tennessee to Florida, west to Missouri and Texas (Curtiss 6S14, Palmer 7484).

Eryngium prostratum, commonly called creeping eryngo, is a species of plant in the family Apiaceae that is native to the southeastern United States.

It is a perennial that produces blue flowers in the summer through frost on herbaceous stems.