Helmet Flower, Skullcap (Scutellaria integrifolia) - 6/28/14 D&M, MD

The flowers are blue and not purple as shown. I think using the flash on the camera changed the color. I found a small "grove" of three plants growing in the woods.
The flowers had this color:
http://www.fnps.org/plants/plant/scutellaria-integrifolia

It took long enough to figure out this is a Skullcap.
It took just as long to narrow it down to species.
One site said over 100 species, another 200, and yet another over 300.

I decided to start at usda.gov's list and worked my way through the ones they had pictures of.
http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=SCIN2

Eventually that led me to:
http://www.alabamaplants.com/Blueopp/Scutellaria_integrifolia_page.html
they show the lower leaves that look like the ones mine have, although I stripped them for taking the picture. (sigh)
and
this is the occurrence map
http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=SCIN2

USwildflowers also has a picture of flower with "teeth" like mine
http://uswildflowers.com/detail.php?SName=Scutellaria%20integrifolia
this site also shows the blue color of the flowers as they are and not having as much purple as my pictures show.

seedpods
http://plants.usda.gov/java/largeImage?imageID=scin2_003_ahp.tif

When I saw the picture of the seedpods at usda.gov I got excited because they looked familiar.

Yes, three years ago I took a picture of seedpods that I thought "interesting" because they looked like little shovels. Never did find out what they were - until today. They're in the next picture.