WEEDS OF THE F1GWORT FAMILY. 129 



anodynes and are much used in medicine, especially for asthma and 

 kindred troubles. They are mostly imported, though they can be 

 easily gathered and prepared for sale by farm boys and girls. The 

 leaves should be stripped from the plant when the latter is in 

 flower, and carefully dried in the shade. In the collecting of the 

 seed the capsules should be picked when they are quite ripe but yet 

 green in color, and dried for a few days, when they will burst and 

 allow the seeds to be shaken out. These should then be thoroughly 

 dried. The leaves are sold under the name of stramonium at 2 to 

 8 cents a pound : while the seeds bring 3 to 7 cents a pound. 



THE FIGWORT FAMILY. SCROPHULARIACE^]. 



Chiefly herbs with perfect, complete and usually irregular flow- 

 ers, having the calyx 4-5-toothed, -cleft or -divided ; corolla with the 

 petals united, usualty 2-lipped; stamens 2-4, rarely 5, inserted on 

 the corolla and alternate with its lobes; ovary 2-celled with many 

 ovules. Fruit a 2-celled and usually many seeded capsule which 

 splits lengthwise. 



A family of 2,500 or more known species widely distributed but 

 most abundant in temperate regions. The flowers, which are mostly 

 2-lipped, resemble those of the mints, but the plants are usually 

 easily distinguished from the mints, by the cylindric stems and 2- 

 celled, many seeded pods. Moreover the figworts are mostly bitter- 

 ish whereas the mints are fragrant or aromatic. Among the more 

 common of the 50 or more wild forms growing in the State are the 

 mullens, toad-flaxes, turtle-heads, beard-tongues, monkey-flowers, 

 speedwells, foxgloves, gerardias, painted-cups and louseworts. Only 

 a half dozen or so are weeds and of these onlv the common mullen 

 belongs to the first class. 



95. VERBASCUM THAPSUS L. Common Mullen. Woolly Mullen. Velvet 



Plant. Aaron's Rod. (B.I.I.) 



Stem stout, erect, densely woolly, wing-angled by the bases of the 

 leaves, 2-7 feet high; leaves alternate, oblong, thick, 4-12 inches long. 

 Flowers yellow, sessile, in a long, dense cylindrical spike; corolla wheel- 

 shaped; stamens 5, unequal, the 3 upper or shorter ones woolly. Cap- 

 sules slightly longer than the calyx. Seeds rough, not winged. (Fig. 93.) 



A very common and well known weed, occurring in dry or 

 sandy soil along roadsides and embankments, and especially on the 

 slopes of old abandoned fields and in poor half-barren pastures. 

 June-Sept. The plant produces the first year a broad, thick and 

 very handsome rosette of root leaves which, during the winter, lie 



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