BORAGE FAMILY 



BORAGINACEAE 



CORN GROMWELL 



Lithospermum arvense L. 



The Corn Gromwell is among the surprising number of weeds 

 that are immigrants from other countries. Its home is Europe 

 and Asia but now in many places in this country is more common 

 than our native species. It is an annual or 

 biennial in fields and waste places, and 

 sometimes even on lawns, from Quebec to 

 Ontario, south to Georgia and Kansas. 



The erect and usually branched stem 

 grows 6-20 inches high. The leaves are 

 bright and green and the lowest sometimes 

 have short petioles. 



The tiny white flowers, blooming from 

 May to August, are sessile or nearly so in 

 the spikes. The green calyx is 5-cleft, the 

 narrow lobes about equaling the corolla 

 tube in length. The corolla is funnelform, 

 5-lobed at the top, with the 5 stamens 

 inserted in its minutely hairy throat. The 

 style is slender and the 4-divided ovary 

 produces in fruit 4 brown and somewhat 

 wrinkled or pitted nutlets. 



The Narrow-leaved Puccoon, Lithosper- 

 mum angustijolium Michx., is a dry prairie 

 inhabitant, and has the longest flowers ot 

 the genus. They are 2 inches long, one-half 

 to three-quarters of an inch across, and 

 massed in a flattened inflorescence that 

 elongates in fruit. Small scalloped appen- 

 dages are attached to the inner side of each 

 of the 5 pale yellow petal lobes. Late-season 

 flowers have small or inconspicuous corollas 

 without these appendages or crests. 



The American or Wild Gromwell, Lithospermum latifoUum 

 Michx., is a rough-hairy perennial which, although 2-3 feet high and 

 occurring locally on wooded slopes throughout the state, may easily 

 be overlooked. There are many rough ovate-lanceolate leaves 2-5 

 inches long, from the axils of which spring small solitary funnelform 

 flowers. The yellowish white corolla barely shows beyond the 5 

 linear-lanceolate calyx segments. The flowering time is May. The 

 nutlets are white and shining, globose-ovoid and about one-sixth 

 of an inch long. 



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