330 HYDROPHYLLACEAE (WATERLEAF FAMILY) 
segments lance-shaped and again cut or toothed, sticky-hairy, 
the upper leaves and bracts often spinescent. Flowers blue, about 
an eighth of an inch broad, in dense, axillary ' 
clusters; corolla funnel-form, with five spread- 
ing lobes and five included stamens; the calyx 
has five spine-tipped, viscidly hairy lobes as 
long as the corolla tube. Capsule’ three-celled 
and three-valved with eight to twelve seeds 
in each cell. Seeds very small, and when wet 
are mucilaginous, which helps them to be car- 
ried about on farming tools and to adhere to 
the feet of animals. (Fig. 228.) 
Means of control 
Put the land under cultivation with a hoed 
crop. In pastures, meadows, and waste places 
the plants should be closely and repeatedly 
cut during the growing season, entirely pre- 
Fig. 228.—Skunk- venting seed development. Burn over rankly 
si ‘? gee '%@ infested ground where the plants have matured, 
thus destroying the seeds on the surface. The 
seed is said to be short-lived, and if the plant is not allowed to 
reproduce itself it must soon be suppressed. 
NYCTELEA 
Ellisia Nyctélea, L. 
(Macrocalyx Nyctélea, Kuntze.) 
Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: April to June. 
Seed-time: May to July. _ 
Range: New Jersey to Minnesota and the Saskatchewan, south- 
ward to Virginia, Missouri, Nebraska, and Colorado. 
Habitat: Grain fields, meadows, waste places. 
Although this plant ranges nearly across the Continent, it is 
most troublesome as a weed in the wheat-growing country of the 
Northwest, where it appears early in spring, makes a rapid growth 
