BORAGINACEAE (BORAGE FAMILY) 



331 



which absorbs much of the food and moisture needed by the crop, 

 matures its fruit, and dies down early in July. 



Stem four inches to a foot high, slender, and diffusely branched. 

 Leaves two to four inches long, with slender petioles, the upper 

 ones alternate, the lower ones usually opposite ; all are pinnately 

 divided, but the segments of the upper ones are usually entire, 

 those of the lower ones toothed or 

 lobed. The whole plant is finely 

 rough-hairy and has a rank, dis- 

 agreeable odor. Flowers solitary on 

 slender peduncles, from the forks 

 or opposite the leaves ; occasionally 

 the later ones are in one-sided clus- 

 ters of two or three. They have a 

 calyx of five-pointed lobes and a five- 

 lobed, nearly cylindrical, white or 

 bluish corolla, with five included 

 stamens and two styles, united at 

 the base. Calyx and corolla of 

 about the same length (a little more 

 than a quarter-inch) when the flower 

 first opens ; but as the fruit forms 

 the calyx enlarges and spreads widely, 

 becoming a five-pointed star-shape, nearly an inch broad, with a 

 small globose two-celled capsule in the center usually containing 

 four seeds. (Fig. 229.) 



Means of control 



In grain fields the seedlings should be dragged out with a weed- 

 ing harrow in the spring, when the crop is but a few inches high. 

 Short rotations with cultivated crops will most easily keep the 

 weed in subjection. 



INDIAN HELIOTROPE 

 Heliotrdpium indicum, L. 



Introduced. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom : May to September. 

 Seed-time: July to November. 



FIG. 229. Field Nyctelea (Elli- 

 sia Nyctelea). X j. 



