340 BORAGINACEAE (BORAGE FAMILY) 



brownish gray, wrinkled, pitted, and hard as 

 stone, whence one of the common names ; they 

 are a common impurity of poorly cleaned wheat 

 and rye, and also of timothy and alsike clover. 

 (Fig. 236.) 



Means of control 



Sow clean seed. Where the appearance is 

 new and the areas small enough to permit of 

 hand-pulling, that operation pays because it 

 saves the soil from befoulment. Spray infested 

 grain fields with Iron sulfate or Copper sulfate 

 when the first blossoms appear. Burn over 

 stubbles for the purpose of destroying seeds 

 on the surface. Drop winter wheat and rye 



TTTU I ?;i?r 36 '/r~ from the rotation until a cultivated crop has 

 Wheat-thief (Li- , , , , , . 



thospermum ar- been grown on the land for the purpose ot 

 Dense), x i. stirring dormant seeds into growth. 



COMMON GROMWELL 



Lithospermum officinale, L. 



Other English names: Pearl Plant, Graymile, Littlewale. 



Introduced. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom: May to August. 



Seed-time: July to September. 



Range: Quebec to Minnesota, southward to New Jersey. 



Habitat: Fields, pastures, roadsides, and waste places. 



Cattle refuse to eat these rough-hairy plants, though people are 

 said to have used the leaves as a substitute for tea in Revolution- 

 ary times. Root deep-boring, pinkish white, spindle-shaped. 

 Stems one to three feet high, erect, much branched, and leafy to 

 the summit. Leaves broadly lance-shaped, pointed at both ends, 

 rough-hairy above, downy underneath, entire, and sessile. 

 Flowers cream-colored or greenish white, very small, on very short 

 pedicels in the upper axils ; corolla funnel -form, five-lobed, with 

 five hairy crests in the throat ; calyx rough-hairy, with narrow, 



