LOBELIA FAMILY LOBELIACEAE 
SPIKED LOBELIA 
Lobelia spicata Lam. 
This species is common on gravelly or sandy soil in open places 
or on praries from New Jersey to Florida and west to lowa and 
Texas, blooming from June to August. The stem is slender and 
grows 1-4 feet high. The many leaves are 
rather thick and pale green, the lower up to 3 
inches in length and the upper much smaller, 
becoming bractlike. 
The flowers are pale blue and less than one- 
half inch long. The spikelike raceme may be- 
come 2 feet long. The bracts that subtend the 
flowers are narrow and entire, and the ascend- 
ing pedicels are very short. The calyx tube is — 
usually smooth, top shaped and shorter than — 
its somewhat hairy awl-shaped lobes. There — 
are no appendages in the sinuses. . 
The Indian Tobacco, Lobelia inflata L., usu- — 
ally grows in dry soil in fields and thickets, and ~ 
blooms from July to late fall. It is very acrid 
to the taste and quite poisonous, and has been 
noted as a quack medicine. It is an annual which 
is quite hairy. The stem is leafy, usually branched 
and 1-3 feet high. The thin, oval or oblong 
leaves are 1-2 inches long, the upper sessile but 
the lower usually on short petioles. The flowers 
are light blue and about one-quarter inch long. 
The calyx is smooth or nearly so. The capsule 
is much inflated or smaller when mature, and 
less than one-half inch long. 
The Brook or Water Lobelia, Lobelia Kalmii L., 
is a low perennial by offsets which is found only 
in sands of the northeastern lake region. Its 
few leaves are nearly linear and the pale blue 
flowers, in loose-panicled racemes, are less than — 
one-half inch long. The threadlike pedicels are — 
about equal the length of the linear or hairlike © 
bracts, and have 2 minute bractlets or glands — 
above the middle. There are no appendages in the 
sinuses of the calyx. The bell-shaped capsule is 
wholly inferior and less than one-quarter inch long. 
Se ne ae 
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