SCROPHULARIACEAE (FIGWORT FAMILY) 
Sere well but will leave the ground clean when the chemical 
as leached away. Do not use a cultivator in ground befouled with 
Toad-flax ; it only serves to spread the weed; hoe and hand-labor 
are more effective. If the plants are kept persistently and deeply 
cut throughout the growing season, the underground stems will 
finally starve to death. 
MARYLAND FIGWORT 
Scrophularia marildndica, L. 
Other English names: Pilewort, Heal-all. 
Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: July to September. 
Seed-time: August to October. 
Range: Massachusetts to South Carolina, Kansas, and Louisiana. 
Habitat: Lowland meadows, fence rows, and borders of woods. 
The knotted roots of this plant have 
long been reputed a cure for scrofula, 
piles, and other diseases, and are salable 
in the drug-market. The time for col- 
lecting is in autumn, when the summer’s 
growth has stored the roots for winter’s 
sustenance. 
Stem erect, slender, four-angled, 
smooth except for the glandular hairs on 
its flower stalks, usually much branched, 
often purplish red in color, three to eight 
feet tall. Leaves three inches to a foot 
in length, opposite, dark green, ovate, 
long-pointed, saw-toothed, with promi- 
nent veins and long, slender petioles. 
Flowers in long, open, leafless panicles 
at the summit of the stem and the 
branches; corolla about a quarter-inch 
long, dull green outside, glossy purple 
within, with spreading lower lip and 
Fig. 265. — Maryland Fig- . : 
aoe asa man. Upper one erect, two pairs of fertile 
landica). Xi}. stamens of unequal length and a sterile 
