LABI AT AE (MINT FAMILY) 



349 



to lance-shaped, pointed at both ends, finely clammy-hairy on 

 both sides, entire, with very short petioles. Panicles loosely 

 spreading, the flowers single or in pairs 

 on forking branchlets, subtended by paired 

 bracts ; the flowers are blue, sometimes 

 pink or white, their most noticeable feature 

 being the four very long, upcurving, violet 

 stamens, thrust far out beyond the corolla 

 more than as long again ; in the bud they 

 are spirally coiled and both the common 

 name and the "book-name" have reference 

 to their remarkable appearance; corolla 

 tube very slender, its lower lobe oblong 

 and declined; calyx unequal, with three 

 long and two short lobes, and when the 

 withered corolla falls the four small, rough- 

 ened, ovoid nutlets are in plain sight. 

 (Fig. 241.) 



Means of control 



Enrich the land; when cultivated and 

 supplied with humus, which will enable FIG. 241. Blue 

 the soil to retain moisture, the drought- Curls (Trichostema dicho- 

 . . , .,, j. tomum). X$. 



loving weed will disappear. 



HOREHOUND 

 Marriibium vulgare, L. 



Other English names: Marrube, Houndsbene, Marvel. 



Introduced. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom: June to September. 



Seed-time: August to November. 



Range : Maine and Ontario to South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. 



British Columbia to California. 

 Habitat: Dry soil ; upland fields and pastures. 



A most troublesome weed where sheep are kept, for the long 

 points of the calyx-lobes harden into hooked spines which catch 

 in the fleeces to the detriment of the latter and which also help 



