124 FARM WEEDS OF CANADA 



The Borage family contains several weeds, as Hound's 

 Tongue or Common Bur {Cynoglosswn officinale L.), a leafy, 

 downy, biennial wayside weed, with reddish purple flowers. 

 The seeds (Plate 74, fig. 57) are barbed nutlets, obovate, 

 about 1/4 inch long, the barbs more thinly spread over the flat 

 and broad upper surface than on the more rounded scar-bearing 

 surface and on the slight margin. The scar depressed, pear- 

 shaped, darker than the grayish brown nutlet. These burs 

 are troublesome in the wool of sheep. 



BLUE BUR (Lappula echinata Gilibert) 



Other English names: Stickseed, Sheep Bur, Stickweed. 



Other Latin names: Myosotis Lappvla L.; Lappula Lappula 

 (L.) Karst; Echinospermum Lappula hehm. 



Introduced from Europe. Annual and winter annual. 

 Erect, branching, whole plant covered with short white hairs, 

 which give it a grayish appearance. Leaves linear-oblong; 

 root-leaves about 3 inches long, narrowed at base; stem-leaves 

 stalkless. Flowers small, about 1/8 inch across, pale blue, erect, 

 in leafy, more or less 1-sided racemes, and with minute bracts. 



The seed (Plate 74, fig. 58) is about 1/8 inch long, dark brown, 

 pear-shaped, with a rough surface, inner face sharply angled, 

 outer face rounded, without spines in the centre but having on 

 the sides a double series of long stiff spines, each of which has 

 at its apex a star of 3 or 4 sharp hooks. This nutlet is 

 often found in clover and other commercial seeds, when many 

 or all of the long barbed bristles may be rubbed off; but there 

 is no trouble in recognizing it from the angled inner face, with 

 the small basal scar at the bottom of the central ridge and the 

 unarmed area on the outer face. 



Time of flowering: From June; seeds ripe July. 



Propagation : By seeds. 



