LABIATAE (MINT FAMILY) 353 
lawn-mower and sometimes taking complete possession of the 
sward. It adapts itself to circumstances, fruiting when not more 
than two inches high or sometimes attaining to more than a foot, 
the square, grooved stem sometimes erect or ascending, or often 
prostrate. Leaves long ovate, approaching to lance-shaped, obtuse, 
entire or with shallow scalloped edges, usually smooth or sometimes 
sparsely hairy, narrowing to short petioles. Flowers in densely 
packed terminal and axillary spikes, 
clustered in threes in the axils of mem- 
branaceous, veined, and hairy bracts; 
the blossoms are in various shades of 
purple, some very deep in color, others 
so pale as to be nearly white; corolla 
tubular, with a lengthened upper lip 
which is arched into a hood, into which 
the longer of the two pairs of stamens 
ascend; the lower lip three-lobed and 
spreading; calyx also two-lipped, closed 
in fruit, the upper lip truncate or with 
three short teeth, the lower one two- 
cleft and pointed. Seeds four small, 
ovoid nutlets, which are ripening and 
dropping all summer. (Fig. 244.) 
Means of control 
In fields the weed may be killed by ig EN i eed le 
frequent hoe-cutting. While treating al 
a border with Iron sulfate in order to kill Chickweed, the 
writer discovered that the Heal-all succumbed quite as readily 
to its blight, the leaves blackening and falling off, while the buds 
ceased to grow and in a few days rotted; without leaf-growth the 
roots cannot survive, and therefore Prunella can be driven from the 
lawns by repeated sprayings without injury to the grass. The 
solution used was somewhat strong — about eight per cent — but 
grasses readily recover from much stronger “doses” of this 
chemical; and the beauty of the sward can afford to endure 
temporary injury for the sake of relief from such company. 
2A 
