heart-leaved pitcher sage

Lepechinia cardiophylla is an aromatic shrub with branching stems covered in resin glands. The hairy, glandular leaves are heart-shaped to oval-shaped and often toothed along the edges. The raceme inflorescence bears flowers on prominent pedicels. Each flower is a cuplike calyx of glandular sepals around a tubular white to lavender corolla. The corolla is curled back at the mouth into small lips. The fruit is a dark colored, hairless body a few millimeters long which develops within the calyx of sepals.

Lepechinia cardiophylla was first described from the chaparral of the Santa Ana Mountains of Orange County, California, where it is mostly concentrated. A disjunct population is located in San Diego County, around Iron Mountain in Poway, occupying the intermediate gap between the larger populations in the Santa Anas and the ones in Baja California. In southern San Diego County, the species is instead replaced by the distinct Lepechinia ganderi. In Baja California, this species is found abundantly on the Cerro Bola, and is distributed south to the coastal mountains of Ensenada to Ejido Eréndira. Its distribution is possibly relictual. This species is primarily found growing in chaparral and cismontane woodland. In Orange County it is associated with Exchequer soils, while in San Diego County, Iron Mountain has primarily Friant rocky fine sandy loams. The populations in Baja California, such as on the Cerro Bola, are found on volcanic derived soils.