LOBELIA FAMILY 



LOBELIACEAE 



SPIKED LOBELIA 



Lobelia spicata Lara. 



This species is common on gravelly or sandy soil in open places 

 or on praries from New Jersey to Florida and west to Iowa and 

 Texas, blooming from June to August. The stem is slender and 

 grows 1-4 feet high. The many leaves are 

 rather thick and pale green, the lower up to 3 

 inches in length and the upper much smaller, 

 becoming bractlike. 



The flowers are pale blue and less than one- 

 half inch long. The spikelike raceme may be- 

 come 2 feet long. The bracts that subtend the 

 flowers are narrow and entire, and the ascend- 

 ing pedicels are very short. The calyx tube is 

 usually smooth, top shaped and shorter than 

 its somewhat hairy awl-shaped lobes. There 

 are no appendages in the sinuses. 



The Indian Tobacco, Lobelia inflata L., usu- 

 ally grows in dry soil in fields and thickets, and 

 blooms from July to late fall. It is v^ery acrid 

 to the taste and quite poisonous, and has been 

 noted as a quack medicine. It is an annual which 

 is quite hairy. The stem is leafy, usually branched 

 and 1-3 feet high. The thin, oval or oblong 

 leaves are 1-2 inches long, the upper sessile but 

 the lower usually on short petioles. The flowers 

 are light blue and about one-quarter inch long. 

 The calyx is smooth or nearly so. The capsule 

 is much inflated or smaller when mature, and 

 less than one-half inch long. 



The Brook or Water Lobelia, Lobelia Kalmii L., 

 is a low perennial by off^sets which is found only 

 in sands of the northeastern lake region. Its 

 few leaves are nearly linear and the pale blue 

 flowers, in loose-panicled racemes, are less than 

 one-half inch long. The threadlike pedicels are 

 about equal the length of the linear or hairlike 

 bracts, and have 2 minute bractlets or glands 

 above the middle. There are no appendages in the 

 sinuses of the calyx. The bell-shaped capsule is 

 wholly inferior and less than one-quarter inch long. 



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