LABIATA. $1 
Amsinckia angustifolia, Lehm., is an introduction from Chili which 
appears to be spreading in the Ararat, Bungaree, Horsham and Woodend 
Gistricts. It is easily suppressed by cultivation, cutting and hoeing. 
Borago officinalis, L. The Common Borage. This is a Mediter- 
ranean plant brought to this State with impure agricultural seed, but not 
yet abundant. It is a rough hairy annual or biennial with blue flowers, 
apt to spread in waste ground, and sometimes cultivated in gardens. 
Young shoots have been used in salads, and the plant collects potassium 
nitrate from the soil, often to a considerable extent. Hitherto, it has not 
proved a serious weed and is easily kept under by the prevention of 
seeding. 
Echium violaceum, L. Viper’s Bugloss. A European introduction 
which is supposed to have been brought to the State by a settler named 
Paterson and which has increased so much in the Shire of Towong as to 
be proclaimed for that Shire, where it is known as Paterson’s Curse. It 
is a coarse biennial with purple or blue fiowers, sometimes almost perennial 
and then especially troublesome on natural pastures. Close cutting sup- 
presses it in time, but it is cheaper in the long run to root the plants up, 
pile and burn them, and then keep the land under cultivation with root 
crops and fallow until all the seed in the soil is exhausted, which apparently 
takes some years. 
An annual or biennial ; stem one to three feet high, erect or ascending, 
diffusely branched. Radical leaves lanceolate, stalked, the stem-leaves 
spreading obtuse, cordate and sometimes dilated at the base. Flowers 
showy, dark blue-purple, in numerous one-sided spikes forming a long 
terminal curved panicle, corolla often an inch long; the narrow part of 
the tube very short, spreading into a broad campanulate throat, with a 
very oblique limb, the lower lobes rather longer than the longest stamens. 
An introduction from Southern Europe. It is not poisonous to stock, 
and is considered to be a very fair pasture plant in its young state, but 
when the plant matures, the flower-stalk is very rough and hairy, so that 
stock do not touch it, and when it seeds and dies off, all the grass is killed 
underneath, hence the ground is left quite bare. 
Proclaimed for the Shires of Towong (1904) and Maldon (1908). 
Lithospermum arvense, L. The Corn’ Gromwell. A small erect, 
usually greyish, annual with small, white flowers. It was introduced from 
Europe with impure seed-cereals, and is fairly common in corn-fields as 
well as in waste places. It is not a serious weed and is easily kept down 
by good cultivation, coupled with rotation farming, but if neglected in 
wheat fields grows up and smothers the young wheat plants. 
LapiaT# (DEADNETTLE F AmMILy). 
This rather large and homogeneous order contains no poisonous, species 
but manv useful ones used in cooking on account of their aromatic flavour, 
or as a. source of perfume. The order is easily recognised by the opposite 
leaves. square stems, flowers with lower and usually with an upper lip, 
four stamens (rarely two), and the fruit divided into four little nutlets. 
The leaves of a few, as for instance Prunella vulgaris, L., have a slight 
fodder or food value (salad or vegetable) when young, but most are too 
bitter or aromatic. A ‘little in-hay is not serious, but an excess is in all 
cases to be avoided. The plants are usually perennial herbs occasionally 
shrubby, but even those with creeping underground stems are usually easily 
kept ase In some cases, the seeds have a very prolonged vitality in 
the soil. 
