Large-bract Vervain / Verbena bracteata

I don't remember ever seeing this wildflower before - anyway, it's the first photo of it on my photostream. The tiny flowers were such a pretty colour. This was found on a hike on the Small Whaleback, an area of wonderful, rolling hills way south of the city, on July 10th. The Small Whaleback (and yes, there is a larger Whaleback nearby, lol) is just off Highway 22, immediately north of the Oldman River.

"Verbena bracteata is a species of verbena known by the common names bigbract verbena, prostrate vervain, and carpet vervain. It is native to North America where it is widespread, occurring throughout the continent except for northern Canada and southern Mexico. It occurs in many types of habitat, especially disturbed areas, where it grows as a common weed. This annual or biennial herb produces several hairy, spreading stems up to 30 centimeters long forming a low mat on the ground. The hairy leaves are toothed or lobed. The inflorescence is a spike of flowers which is dense with long, pointed, leaflike bracts each up to 8 millimeters long. Each small tubular flower is about half a centimeter wide and white to pale purple in color." From Wikipedia.