BORAGINACEAE (BORAGE FAMILY) 331 
which absorbs much of the food and moisture needed by the crop, 
matures its fruit, and dies down early in July. 
Stem four inches to a foot high, slender, and diffusely branched. 
Leaves two to four inches long, with slender petioles, the upper 
ones alternate, the lower ones usually opposite; all are pinnately 
divided, but the segments of the upper ones are usually entire, 
those of the lower ones toothed or 
lobed. The whole plant is finely 
rough-hairy and has a rank, dis- 
agreeable odor. Flowers solitary on 
slender peduncles, from the forks 
or opposite the leaves; occasionally 
the later ones are in one-sided clus- 
ters of two or three. They have a 
calyx of five-pointed lobes and a five- 
lobed, nearly cylindrical, white or 
bluish corolla, with five included 
stamens and two styles, united at 
the base. Calyx and corolla of 
about the same length (a little more 
than a quarter-inch) when the flower 
first opens; but as the fruit forms 
the calyx enlarges and spreads widely, 
becoming a five-pointed star-shape, nearly an inch broad, with a 
small globose two-celled capsule in the center usually containing 
four seeds. (Fig. 229.) 
Fig. 229. — Field Nyctelea (Elli- 
sia Nyctelea).  X }. 
Means of control 
In grain fields the seedlings should be dragged out with a weed- 
ing harrow in the spring, when the crop is but a few inches high. 
Short rotations with cultivated crops will most easily keep the 
weed in subjection. > 
INDIAN HELIOTROPE 
Heliotropium indicum, L. 
Introduced. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: May to September. 
Seed-time: July to November. 
