A naturally occurring seedling of Physostegia virginiana 'Rosea', Miss Manners was selected for its compact form and, crucially, its restraint. Where the species can colonize a border with some aggression, this cultivar stays put, growing 2 to 2.5 feet tall in a tidy, self-supporting clump that rarely needs staking. The flowers are pure white — 1-inch tubular blooms borne on showy terminal spikes — and each spike opens from the bottom upward through late summer and into fall.

It grows best in moist, well-drained, moderately fertile soil in sun to partial shade, and it reblooms from summer through fall with more persistence than most selections. Bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds find it reliably. Like all members of the mint family, the flowers have that characteristic hinged quality that gives obedient plant its common name — each bloom can be rotated on the spike and will hold the new position.