• Chelone glabra (Turtlehead) native plant in bloom
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Chelone glabra (Turtlehead)

Chelone glabra (Turtlehead)

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White turtlehead (Chelone glabra) flowers in late summer, with white, sometimes pink-tinged blooms clustered at the tops of leafy stems. The flowers have a closed, hooded shape and open progressively up each cluster. It is a useful late-flowering plant for damp gardens and wetland edges.

Choose moist to wet soil in sun or partial shade. A rain garden is suitable only where that part of the bed retains enough moisture between storms; a dry upper slope is not equivalent to a wet planting zone. Rich soil that holds moisture supports its growth.

Too much shade can leave the stems leaning or in need of support. Spring tip-pruning is an option for a more branched plant in a garden, rather than a requirement in a naturalized planting. Keep the soil from drying out during establishment and through prolonged dry weather.

Plant specifications

Key growing facts

Sunlight Sun; Partial shade
Soil moisture Wet
Height 2 to 4 feet
Bloom season August–September (Minnesota observations)

Native landscape companions

For full sun and wet soil, consider these native plants alongside Chelone glabra:

Companion plant Height
Dark-green Bulrush (Scirpus atrovirens) About 2½–4 ft
Fringed Loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata) 1-4 ft
Common Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) 2-4 ft
Rice Cut Grass (Leersia oryzoides) 2–3½ ft

These landscape suggestions combine overlapping growing needs with documented plant associations. Match soil, seasonal wetness and mature spread to your site. Remnant records are described separately under Plant communities & associates.

Show / hide ▾Growing & planting details
Growth habit Upright herbaceous perennial; too much shade can cause stems to flop
Root form Short rhizomes
Soil pH Neutral and alkaline soil categories listed by Extension; numerical tolerance limits are not established
Cultivation hardiness zones Zones 3a–8b (general cultivation guidance)
Drought tolerance Drying soil can encourage mildew; overall drought tolerance is not rated

Plant identification & seed reference

Botanical name Chelone glabra
Other common names turtlehead; Chelone; White Turtlehead
Plant family Scrophulariaceae

Plant characteristics

It's attractive white flowers, with the appropriate amount of imagination, resemble a turtle's head.  Chelone glabra (Turtlehead) works well in moist soils, but it can work well in normal moisture soils as well if it is watered in dry periods.  It serves as a preferred host plant for the Baltimore checkerspot

  • Flower Color White
  • Flower Time Aug-Oct
Show / hide ▾Plant communities & associatesDocumented community records

Spring Bay Fen Nature Preserve — tall shrub fen

Surveyed in 2007, 2008 and 2011. Tall shrub fen on Lena muck, recorded separately from the adjoining forest and filled upland. These dated records do not establish presence today.

Other native plants recorded in this surveyed community: Acer saccharinum, Amorpha fruticosa, Asclepias incarnata, Blephilia hirsuta, Bolboschoenus fluviatilis, Caltha palustris, Carex hystericina, Carex stipata, Cephalanthus occidentalis, Cinna arundinacea.

Murphy, Phillippe & Ebinger 2021, Appendix 1. Selected associates from the same community; records do not show immediate neighbors or prescribe planting ratios.

Show / hide ▾Native range & C-value

State nativity describes a broad range. Use the Chicago-region assessment for local context; a state listing does not establish county nativity.

Wetland indicator — NWPL 2022 Midwest OBL
C-value — Chicago region, Flora 2017 8
Chicago-region native — Flora 2017 Yes
Native range — U.S. states Alabama; Arkansas; Connecticut; Delaware; Georgia; Illinois; Indiana; Iowa; Kentucky; Maine; Maryland; Massachusetts; Michigan; Minnesota; Mississippi; Missouri; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New York; North Carolina; Ohio; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; South Carolina; Tennessee; Vermont; Virginia; West Virginia; Wisconsin
County nativity Not yet verified; occurrence records do not establish nativity.
Show / hide ▾Pollinators & wildlife

Caterpillars & other plant-feeding insects

This plant has published caterpillar host records for the butterflies and moths listed below. These are larval feeding relationships, separate from adult nectar visits. The records span a North American literature compilation and do not establish that every insect occurs locally or uses only this plant.

Butterflies & skippers

  • Euphydryas phaeton — The Baltimore, The Black Checker

Moths

  • Eupithecia satyrata — Satyr Pug
  • Papaipema nepheleptena — Turtlehead Borer

Other insect & wildlife relationships

Caterpillars this plant can feed

Baltimore Checkerspot; Common Buckeye (rarely used in North Carolina).

  • Flower visits: The flowers attract bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

Additional published species records; Illinois insect occurrence is not established by this account. These records do not guarantee that every insect occurs at your planting site.

Show / hide ▾Frequently asked questions

What are the ideal growing conditions for Turtlehead?
Light: Sun; Partial shade. Soil moisture: Wet.

Is Turtlehead deer and herbivore resistant?
Species-specific deer resistance has not been verified here. Even plants described as resistant may be browsed. Use physical protection where deer damage is a concern.

When should I expect Turtlehead to bloom?
Typical flowering period: August–September (Minnesota observations). Timing varies with location and weather.

Show / hide ▾Sources & ecological notes

Landscape companion selection: Natural Communities compared the growing requirements shown on these species pages with selected source records: Tall shrub fen — Illinois River valley. The shortlist is a planting-design inference. A shared record does not establish adjacency, identical soil requirements, local seed origin, or a tested planting combination. Regional synthesis records retain their documented focal-to-associate scope.

Native range & ecological ratings: Flora of the Chicago Region (2017), via Universal FQA; USACE Chicago FQA (2017); Kew WCVP / Plants of the World Online; USACE National Wetland Plant List.

Growing conditions & other references: Minnesota Wildflowers; Patrick Goggin: Wisconsin native plant guide, p. 75; Virginia Native Plant Society — White Turtlehead brochure; NC State Extension Plant Toolbox.

Wildlife records: Shropshire & Tallamy: caterpillar hosts (2025).

Native range does not identify the origin of the seed or plants offered. Community and wildlife records apply to the locations and conditions described.

Research notes & credits

USACE/ERDC fqadata — Chicago Region FQA 2017. Herman, B., Sliwinski, R. & Whitaker, S. (2017), Chicago Region FQA Calculator; distributed by USACE/ERDC in fqadata under CC0. Values may differ from Flora of the Chicago Region (2017). CC0 dedication. Retained for comparison; the displayed C-value follows Flora database 80.

Range data: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; 4 June 2026 release, accessed 7 September 2026. © The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. CC BY 3.0; selected and reformatted. Kew cannot warrant the quality or accuracy of these data. This use has no Kew endorsement.

Caterpillar host records: Shropshire, K.J. & Tallamy, D.W. (2025), Lepidoptera of North America, Supplement 1. Contains information from this database made available under the Open Database License (ODbL 1.0). Natural Communities selected species-level records and screened source qualifications. The complete selection and transformation instructions for this page are available below under the same license.

Flora rating attribution: Kenneth Johnson (2018), Flora of the Chicago Region UFQA Database, following Gerould Wilhelm and Laura Rericha (2017), Flora of the Chicago Region: A Floristic and Ecological Synthesis. Individual rating facts are presented with original commentary; the calculator’s software license is not treated as a license for the underlying Flora publication.

Caterpillar research records

Plant: Chelone glabra

Record scope: Host literature synthesis; no county nativity or local insect occurrence inferred.

Shropshire & Tallamy (2025) · Original research dataset · Reuse license: ODbL-1.0

Plant names in the source Source insect record IDs
Chelone glabra 205414, 205570, 209284

How these records were selected

To reproduce this selection, use the “UDELep May 2025” worksheet in the original research dataset.

  1. Match the insect record IDs above to column A (UDLepID). Within each table row, pair every listed insect ID with every listed source plant name.
  2. Use the first two words in column H for the insect’s scientific name, column E for its common name, and column AB for its source category.
  3. Treat the selected pairs as reported caterpillar host records. Keep all other source fields unchanged and outside this selected table. Include no other rows or host pairs.
  4. Group butterflies and skippers together, and the other categories as moths. Retain the source’s exotic-category labels and sort display names by scientific insect name.

Growing guidance: Illinois Extension — Keeping deer out of the yard and garden. Selected facts in original wording. General deer advice is not a species resistance rating.

Additional community records: Murphy, Phillippe & Ebinger (2021), Spring Bay Fen flora and vegetation. Selected facts and taxonomic links; source spellings and historical survey dates retained.

Plant Shipping & Care

We want to ensure that our customers get what they want, a native backyard oasis. To do that, we need to follow a few simple guidelines and give you some information and pointers to make sure you get your plants delivered in a healthy state.

As a reminder, you will receive an email to confirm your pickup or shipping window just before the plants are ready. See Order Fulfillment below for seasonal fulfillment windows.

 

Choices to Receive Your Plants & Accessories

  • Website orders: Seed, plugs and bare-root plants offered for shipping are shipped to your address. Shipping charges are calculated at checkout.
  • Container trees and shrubs: Some #3 and #5 container options are offered for scheduled pickup only. Check the selected product option and the cart pickup instructions before ordering. Pickup and shipped items require separate orders where indicated in the cart.
  • Wholesale orders: Delivery and pickup are arranged separately according to the order, supplier yard and location. Wholesale pickup is free.
  • Pickup locations and dates are confirmed by email. Please wait for confirmation before traveling to a pickup site. Our offices are not retail stores or nursery pickup locations.

 

Order Fulfilment - When Your Plants or Other Items Will Be Ready

We take orders all year long and seed is shipped all year, but we only provide the plants to you in certain fulfillment windows to ensure healthy plants.

Wholesale Orders

  • Shipped or are Ready For Pick Up As Requested.

 

Retail & Website Orders

  • Seed Typically Ships Out Within One Week Of Order All Year Long
  • Typically, single species flats ship when ready, sometimes as soon as early to mid-April (depends on weather) through early-October.
  • Mixed species kits are batched and shipped as indicated on the product page.
  • If a plant order is placed while outside of the plant fulfillment window your plants will be reserved through your payment, however, the order will not be fulfilled and shipped until the following spring. We don't want to provide you plants when they won't be happy during the cold winter months. 
  • Early in the spring and later in the fall certain species may be dormant or partially dormant with brown leaves, however they will return to grow healthy next growing season.
  • Your order may arrive in several different shipments.
  • If certain plants within an order will not be available until a later date, we may choose to hold the full order until all are ready.  In certain circumstances, we may choose to send them in two separate shipments 
  • Fulfillment is always dependent upon plant availability.  We try our best but sometimes plants do not overwinter well and perish.  If a plant is on back order you will receive an email indicating the estimated shipping date.  If we can not provide the plant we will first notify you and give you an option of substitution or a refund of that individual species.
  • Plants are typically only packaged and shipped on Mondays to ensure they do not sit in the harsh delivery facility for extended periods of time over the weekend. You will receive a confirmation email once your delivery has been shipped and to estimate your delivery date.
  • Apparel & accessories are ready typically within one to two weeks. See product page for holiday shipping.

Where We Ship

 

 

        What to Expect When Receiving Your Delivery

        • Your plants will be packaged with the utmost care
        • We will need to cut back certain plants prior to shipping. This seems counter-intuitive, however, the fewer leaves the less water the plants can lose during shipping, resulting in healthier plants for you. This also enables the plants to fit within the protective packaging and shipped safely.

         

           Shipments

          • Larger plant shipments will look similar to the picture below with a tray of your plants and a cardboard box to protect them during shipping.

           

           

          What to Do With Your Plants After  Receiving Your Delivery

          • Unpack your order IMMEDIATELY
          • Inspect for damage and report any issues immediately to Natives@NaturalCommunities.net
          • Water your plants
          • Install your plants as quickly as possible and water the entire garden area thoroughly
          • If you cannot install your plants immediately
            • Some plants may not be in a container, put them into some kind of a container such as a paper cup with loose soil until installation
            • Make sure each plant is receiving the appropriate amount of light.
            • Continue to water daily each morning and possibly again in the afternoon
            • No additional fertilizer is needed
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