376 



Minnesota Plant Life. 



false pennyroyals have the fruit-rudiment lobed into four sec- 

 tions, but not fairly divided into four nutlets as in the rest of 

 the mints. The wood-sage is a slender herb from one to two 

 feet tall, and is to be looked for in thickets through the southern 

 part of the state and in the Red river valley. The flowers are 

 distinctly two-lipped. The false pennyroyal is of similar habit, 

 six inches or more in height. The flowers are small, blue, 

 almost regular, and disposed in flat-topped clusters arising from 

 the axils of the leaves. 



Skullcaps. Of those mints which separate their fruit-rudi- 

 ment into four 

 nutlets, the 

 skullcaps may 

 be known by 

 the curious lit- 

 tle bulging pro- 

 tuberance upon 

 the back of each 

 flower. Skull- 

 caps are, for the 

 most part, small 

 herbs, with 

 leaves of vari- 

 ous shapes, and 

 strongly two-- 

 lipped flowers, 



generally Ol a FlQ 17g clump O f horse-mint (in middle of picture). After 

 blue COlor. photograph by Williams. 



Four kinds occur in Minnesota. 



The rest of the mints may be divided into two series. In 

 one the corollas are two-lipped, and the upper lip is con- 

 cave. Here are included the catnips, the dragon's-heads, 

 the heal-alls, the false dragon's-heads, the hedge-nettles and 

 hemp-nettles, in all of which there are four stamens with pollen 

 pouches. The sages, horsemints and Blephilias have the same 

 kind of corolla but only two of the stamens produce any pollen 

 pouches. The other series of mints includes those forms in 

 which the corolla tube is nearly regular, or, if two-lipped, has 

 the upper lip flat or but very little concave. Here are to be 



