330 HYDROPHYLLACEAE (WATERLEAF FAMILY) 



segments lance-shaped and again cut or toothed, sticky-hairy, 

 the upper leaves and bracts often spinescent. Flowers blue, about 

 an eighth of an inch broad, in dense, axillary 

 clusters ; corolla funnel-form, with five spread- 

 ing lobes and five included stamens ; the calyx 

 has five spine-tipped, viscidly hairy lobes as 

 long as the corolla tube. Capsule three-celled 

 and three-valved with eight to twelve seeds 

 in each cell. Seeds very small, and when wet 

 are mucilaginous, which helps them to be car- 

 ried about on farming tools and to adhere to 

 the feet of animals. (Fig. 228.) 



Means of control 



Put the land under cultivation with a hoed 

 crop. In pastures, meadows, and waste places 

 the plants should be closely and repeatedly 

 cut during the growing season, entirely pre- 

 _ F ? 1 '/^!'~r?! cu ?k- venting seed development. Burn over rankly 

 infested ground where the plants have matured, 

 thus destroying the seeds on the surface. The 

 seed is said to be short-lived, and if the plant is not allowed to 

 reproduce itself it must soon be suppressed. 



NYCTELEA 



Ellisia Nycttlea, L. 

 (Macrocalyx Nyctelea, Kuntze.) 



Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom : April to June. 

 Seed-time: May to July. 



Range: New Jersey to Minnesota and the Saskatchewan, south- 

 ward to Virginia, Missouri, Nebraska, and Colorado. 

 Habitat : Grain fields, meadows, waste places. 



Although this plant ranges nearly across the Continent, it is 

 most troublesome as a weed in the wheat-growing country of the 

 Northwest, where it appears early in spring, makes a rapid growth 



