118 



THE INDIANA WEED BOOK. 



glands containing a volatile oil which yields the aroma or spicy 

 fragrance common to most members of the family. If the plant 

 belongs to the mint family, by rubbing one of the leaves between 

 the fingers one can easily detect an odor akin to that of catnip or 

 pennyroyal. If in addition the stem is 4-sided and the nutlets 4 

 its location there is certain. Here belong the sage and lavender, 

 bergamot and hoarhound, thyme and sweet majorum, balm and 

 savory, sweet basil and hyssop of our country gardens. Here also 

 belong about 65 species growing wild in the State, among them, 

 in addition to the weeds below mentioned, being skull-caps, giant 

 hyssops heal-all. dragon-head, hedge nettles, horse mints, wild 

 basils, field balms, mountain mints, pepper-mints and bugle-weeds. 

 Mint extracts, distilled from the foliage of certain species, are used 

 in perfumery, confectionery and in medicines and a number of the 



wild forms are gathered as house- 

 hold remedies. While a half dozen 

 or more of the family are weeds in 

 that they are useless plants, no one 

 of them possesses that dominant in- 

 trusive character which marks a 

 weed of the first class. 



82 Teucrium can aden se L. Wood 

 Sage. American Germander. 

 (P. N. 3.) 

 Stem stiff, erect, downy, somewhat- 

 branched, 1-3 feet high ; leaves lance- 

 olate or oblong, short-stalked, pointed, 

 sharp-toothed. Flowers f inch long, 

 pinkish or purplish in terminal bracted 

 spikes; corolla tube short, the upper 

 lip 2-lobed ; stamens 4, exserted. Nut- 

 lets rough, attached by the sides. 

 (Fig. 81.) 



Common in grass lands along 

 the borders of streams, marshes, 

 moist thickets and fence-rows. 

 June-Sept. The ovary is only 4- 

 lohed, not divided into 4 nutlets as in the other mint weeds treated 

 below, and the stamens protrude from the cleft between the lobes 

 of the upper lip. Remedies: mowing and grubbing. 



S3. Nepeta cataria L. Catnip. Catmint. (P. I. 2.) 



Stem erect, rather stout, branched, pale green, very downy. 2-3 feet 

 high ; leaves ovate or heart-shaped, deeply scalloped, paler beneath. Flow- 



Fig. 81. a, branch with flower clusters; b, side 

 icw of a few flowers; c, bilabiate or two-lipped 

 v ower, enlarged, showing the united sepals, the three 

 divisions of lower lip and two of upper, the stamens 

 d n d style protruding through the slit of upper lip. 

 aAfter Briquet. ) 

 ( 



