MINT FAMILY. Labiatae. 



clear bright lilac with an erect upper lip with two lobes, 

 their fringed tips crossed one over the other, and the 

 lower lip with small side lobes and a very large, fan-shaped, 

 middle lobe, which is delicately fringed with white. The 

 pistil is purple and the anthers are bright orange, which 

 gives a piquant touch to the whole color scheme of pale 

 green and lilac. There are several tiers of these soft yet 

 prickly balls, which suggest the pale green turbans of an 

 eastern potentate, wreathed with flowers. The bud 

 poke their little noses through the wool, in a most fas 

 cinating way. like babies coming out of a woolly blankel 

 and fresh buds keep on coming through and expanding a 

 the faded blossoms fall, so that these flowers last longer i 

 water than we would expect from their fragile appearance 

 The plants when they are crushed give out a rather heav 

 smell of sage, with a dash of lemon verbena. They gro 

 on the dry open plains of the South. 



This is an odd-looking plant, but 

 SdMa columb&riae often q uite handsome. The stout purplis 

 Blue stem, from six inches to over two feet tal 



Spring springs from a cluster of rough, ver 



Southwest ^1 g reen leaves, sometimes so wrinkle 



as to look like the back of a toad, and bears a series < 

 round, button-like heads, consisting of numerous, purpli 

 bristly bracts, ornamented with small, very bright blu 

 flowers. Though the flowers are small, the contrast 

 between their vivid coloring and the purple or wine 

 colored bracts is very effective. The seeds have beer 

 for centuries an important food product among the abo 

 rigines and this plant in ancient Mexico was cultivated a 

 regularly as corn, the meal being extremely nourishing 

 and resembling linseed meal. The Mission Fathers used i 

 for poultices and it is still in demand among the Spanish 

 Californians. This grows on dry hillsides and smells o 

 sage. 



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