350 LABIATAE (MINT FAMILY) 
to distribute the seed. In this way many of the mountain pas- 
tures of the Pacific Coast have been so overrun with this weed as 
to crowd out all other growth. The taste is biting and persistently 
bitter, and no animal will eat the herb. 
The plant is used in medicine as a cough remedy and more 
than a quarter-million pounds of the dried herb are annually im- 
ported from Europe. The parts used 
are the leaves and the flowering tops, 
collected just before the buds open 
and quickly dried in the shade. The 
price is two or three cents a pound. 
Stem one to two feet high, stout, 
erect, square, white-woolly, branching 
and bushy. Leaves opposite, broadly 
oval or rounded, with scalloped edges, 
wrinkled and rough-hairy above, white- 
woolly below, with large veins and 
short, stout petioles. Flowers nearly 
white, in dense axillary whorls, the 
upper lip of the small, tubular corolla 
notched, the lower one three-lobed and 
spreading; stamens included; calyx 
white-woolly, with ten awl-like, re- 
curved teeth, the alternate ones shorter. 
Fig. 242.— Common Hore- : : 
hound (Marrubium valgare). Nutlets ovoid and smooth. (Fig. 
xh .) 
Means of control 
Frequent and close cutting before seed development; or, if the 
colonies are not too large, removal by hoe-cutting. If the ground 
is fit for cultivated crops, the necessary tillage promptly destroys 
the weed. 
CATNIP OR CATMINT 
Népeta Catdria, L. 
Introduced. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: June to September. 
Seed-time: July to November. 
