From Blue to Purple 



Not only beside water, and in it, but often totally immersed, 

 grows the Water Lobelia or Gladiole (L. Dortmanna). The slender, 

 hollow, smooth stem rises from a submerged tuft of round, hol- 

 low, fleshy leaves longitudinally divided by a partition, and bears 

 at the top a scattered array of pale-blue flowers from August to 

 September. 



Indian or Wild Tobacco; Gag-root; Asthma- 

 weed ; Bladder-pod Lobelia 



{Lobelia inflata) Bellflower family 



Flowers — Pale blue or violet, small, borne at short intervals in 

 spike-like leafy racemes. Calyx 5-parted, its awl-shaped lobes 

 % in. long, or as long as the tubular, 2-lipped, 5-cleft, corolla 

 that opens to base of tube on upper side. Stamens, 5 united 

 by their hairy anthers into a ring around the 2-lobed style. 

 Stem : From i to 3 feet high, hairy, very acrid, much branched, 

 leafy. Leaves : Alternate, oblong or ovate, toothed, the upper 

 ones acute, seated on stem; lower ones obtuse, petioled, i to 

 2>4 in. long. Fruit : A much inflated, rounded, ribbed, many 

 seeded capsule. 



Preferred Habitat — Dry fields and thickets ; poor soil. 



Flotvering Season — ^J uly — November. 



Distribution — Labrador westward to the Missouri River, south to 

 Arkansas and Georgia. 



The most stupid of the lower animals knows enough to let 

 this poisonous, acrid plant alone; but not so man, who formerly 

 made a quack medicine from it in the days when a drug that set 

 one's internal organism on fire was supposed to be especially 

 beneficial. One taste of the plant gives a realizing sense of its 

 value as an emetic. How the red man enjoyed smoking and 

 chewing the bitter leaves, except for the drowsiness that followed, 

 is a mystery. 



On account of the smallness of its flowers and their scanti- 

 ness, the Indian tobacco is perhaps the least attractive of the lobe- 

 lias, none of which has so inflated a seed vessel, the distinguish- 

 ing characteristic of this common plant. 



Chicory; Succory; Blue Sailors; Bunk 



{Cichorium Intybus) Chicory family 



Flower-head— '^v\g\\\, deep azure to gray blue, rarely pinkish or 

 white, I to I >2 in. broad, set close to stem, often in small 

 clusters for nearly the entire length; each head a composite 



69 



