LOBELIACEAE LOBELIA FAMILY - - LOBELIA 753 



Lobelia siphilitica L. Great Lobelia 



A somewhat hairy stout, perennial herb from 1-3 feet high; leaves thin, 

 acute or acuminate at the apex, dentate or crenate-dentate, sessile or the lower 

 petioled ; flowers large, spicate, racemose, leafy bracts ; calyx hirsute ; corolla 

 bright blue or occasionally white. 



Distribution. In moist soil near springs and in marshes from New Eng- 

 land to South Dakota, Kansas, Louisiana and Georgia. 



Poisonous properties. It is suspected of being poisonous. Johnson in his 

 manual says of the action of the species of Lobelia: 



In full doses lobelia produces severe nausea, obstinate vomiting, and great prostration. 

 In overdoses the prostration becomes extreme, there is failure of voluntary motion, followed 

 by stupor, coma, and not infrequently convulsions and death. Though formerly much used 

 for emetic effect by empirics, dangerous effects were so often produced that it is now seldom 

 employed in this manner. It is chiefly employed in spasmodic affections of the air-passages, as 

 spasmodic laryngitis and spasmodic asthma. In the latter disease it often produces the hap- 

 piest effects. 



The great lobelia is probably not as poisonous as L. inflata to which the 

 above remarks chiefly apply. 



Lobelia cardinalis L Cardinal-flower 



A tall smooth or slightly pubescent perennial 2-4 feet high; leaves thin, 

 oblong, lanceolate, smooth or slightly pubescent, crenulate; flowers racemose, 

 bright scarlet or red. 



Distribution. In moist soil, usually alluvial bottoms, from New Brunswick 

 to Manitoba, Kansas, Texas, to Florida. 



Poisonous properties. Reported as poisonous. 



Lobelia spicata Lam. Spiked Lobelia 



A perennial or biennial, smooth or pubescent herb; leaves smooth or min- 

 utely pubescent; leaves thickish, the lower obovate or spatulate, the upper 

 linear or club-shaped bracts, entire or dentate or crenulate; flowers in a 

 racemose spike, pale blue ; calyx tube short, obconical or nearly hemispherical. 



Distribution. Prairies or dry sandy soil. From Nova Scotia to Manitoba, 

 Louisiana to North Carolina. 



Poisonous properties. Reported as poisonous. 



COMPOSITAE Adans. Thistle Family 



Herbs or rarely shrubs ; flowers borne in a close head on the receptacle, 

 surrounded by an involucre of a few or many bracts; anthers usually united 

 into a tube, syngenesious, sometimes caudate; calyx adnate to the ovary; limb 

 crowning the summit in the form of capillary or plumose bristles or chaff called 

 the pappus ; corolla tubular or strap-shaped, when tubular, usually 5-lobed : 

 ligulate or bilabiate in one small division of the family; the flowers of a head 

 may be all alike when they are called homogamous; or of two kinds, heter- 

 ogamous ; bracts or scales on the receptacle are often present ; flowers inside 

 of the rays are disk flowers and a flower without rays is said to be discoid; 

 stamens 5 or rarely 4; style 2-cleft at the apex or in sterile flowers usually entire; 

 fruit a dry, indehiscent achenium containing a single seed without endosperm. 



A large family consisting of 840 genera and 13,000 species, found in all 

 parts of the world. This is the largest order of flowering plants. Sometimes 

 it is divided into the families Cichoriaceae, Ambrosiaceac and Cotnpositae. 



A few of the plants of the family are medicinal. Inulin is obtained from 



