WEEDS OF THE VERVAIN FAMILY. 



117 



Fruit densely overlapping on the spikes. Seeds like the preceding but 

 larger. (Fig. 80.) 



Frequent in moist meadows and open sandy fields, waste places, 

 etc. June-Sept. Sometimes associated with it, but more often in 



dry, open pastures, is the hoary ver- 

 vain (V. stricta Vent.) densely soft, 

 hairy all over, leaves nearly sessile, 

 spikes stout, often a foot long, densely 

 flowered, the corolla larger, deep 

 purplish blue. In both the flowering 

 begins at the base and progesses 

 slowly upward so that often only an 

 inch or two is in blossom at a time. 

 When in the height of the blooming 

 period the seed pods, or fruit of the 

 past, are below; the unopened buds 

 of the future above. Life, present 



Fig. so. single flower on left; seed and fruit WO rk, is then centered in the flower- 

 on right. (After Bntton and Brown.) 



ing part ; duty performed, work well 



done, in the seed part; promises or hopes for the future in the buds. 

 Only the blooming part, that which is active, is then beautiful. 

 Both plants are, however, in many places too plentiful and the 

 farmer needs their room. Remedies: repeated mowing before the 

 first blossoms appear; cultivation. 



The narrow-leaved vervain (V. angustifolia Michx.) is regarded 

 as a bad weed in the eastern States, but with us has so far ap- 

 peared in only 3 or 4 counties, where it occurs on prairies and in 

 light sandy soil along high banks of streams. It is low, 1-2 feet 

 high, with very slender or at most willow-shaped leaves and blue 

 flowers in dense, slender spikes. Remedies the same. 



THE MINT FAMILY. LABIATE. 



Chiefly aromatic herbs with 4-sided stems and simple opposite 

 leaves. Flowers mostly in small clusters, spikes or racemes from 

 the axils of the leaves ; corolla with a short or long tube, more or 

 less 2-lipped; upper lip usually 2-lobed, lower, 3-lobed; stamens 

 usually 4, 2 long, 2 short, sometimes only 2, borne on the tube of 

 the corolla ; ovary deeply 4-lobed, forming a fruit of four 1-seededi 

 nutlets in the bottom of the persistent calyx. 



A family of about 3,000 species, of wide distribution in tem- 

 perate and tropical regions. The foliage is dotted with small 



