LOBELIACEAE (LOBELIA FAMILY) 411 



usually without branches. Leaves large, alternate, thin, dark green, 

 oblong, pointed at both ends, somewhat hairy, irregularly and 

 rather finely toothed, sessile except the lowermost. Flowers in 

 narrow, crowded, leafy, bracted racemes sometimes six inches or 

 more in length, deep blue or occasionally white ; corolla nearly an 

 inch long, the tube cleft to the base on the upper side, the two 

 lobes of its upper lip acute but the three lower ones longer and 

 somewhat obtuse ; stamens five, united into a tube around the 

 style, with three of the anthers larger than the other two ; calyx 

 hairy, with narrow, long-pointed lobes, the sinuses with large, 

 deflexed auricles. The many-seeded, two-celled capsules float 

 easily on water. 



Means of control 



Hand-pulling or grubbing from pastures and meadows. Drain- 

 age will usually expel the'plant from the soil, for it demands 

 moisture. 



INDIAN TOBACCO 

 Lobelia inflata, L. 



Other English names: Wild Tobacco, Asthma Weed, Bladder-pod, 



Gag-root, Pukeweed, Emetic Root. 

 Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom : July to November. 

 Seed-time: August until the ground is snow-covered. 

 Range : Labrador to the Northwest Territory, southward to Georgia, 



Arkansas, and Nebraska. 

 Habitat : Dry soil ; meadows, pastures, and grain fields. 



A very poisonous plant, and medicinally valuable; collectors 

 receive twenty cents a pound for the seeds and three to eight 

 cents a pound for dried leaves and tops. Grazing animals seem 

 to know the quality of its acrid, milky juices, and usually leave 

 the weed untouched ; but sometimes its young shoots are eaten 

 and cause a sickness known as "slobbers." The writer knows, 

 from the foolhardy experiments of childhood, that the chewing of a 

 single green "bladder-pod" will constrict the muscles of the throat 

 and bring on most unpleasant throes of nausea. (Fig. 287.) 



Stem six inches to two feet high, rather stout, with many short 



