TURPENTINE WEED (Trichostema lanceolatum, Benth.). 

 Flowers blue in dense, axillary clusters, becoming a one-sided 

 raceme in age; stamens, as in T. lanatum, conspicuously ex- 

 serted and curving. Leaves crowded, ashen-gray, lance- 

 shaped from a broad base about an inch long, and strongly 

 3- to 5-ribbed, soft-hairy. A bushy annual, 1 to 2 feet high, 

 blooming from August till October on dry valley lands and 

 mesas throughout California to Oregon. 



'J he feature of Turpentine Weed that identifies it most 

 readily is a pronounced odor of turpentine, which it exhales. 

 To some olfactories there is in the smell a suggestion of vinegar, 

 whence the name Vinegar-weed current in some sections. The 

 Indians made an infusion of the leaves for a headache remedy, 

 but with them the plant's main use, according to Mr. Chesnut, 

 was as a fish poison. The leaves w r ere mashed in quantity and 

 thrown into pools or streams, the effect being to stupefy the 

 fish, which were then easily dipped out by hand or basket. 



The word Trichostema means "hair-like stamen," and was 

 given because of the characteristic slender filaments. The 

 curling habit of these accounts for the name, Blue Curls, ap- 

 plied generally to all species of the genus. 



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