Introduced. Biennial. Propagates by seeds.

Fig. 230. - Indian Heliotrope (Heliotropium indicum).

Time of bloom: June to August.

Seed-time: July to September.

Range: Quebec to Minnesota, southward to Georgia and Kansas.

Habitat: Fields, pastures, waste places.

A worthless weed anywhere, but a special pest in pastures, its downy-hairy leaves having a disagreeable odor and a nauseous taste and the burs being among the worst that beset the fleeces of sheep.

Root rather thick, deep-boring, black, crowned the first year with tufted, dull green leaves, six inches to a foot in length, oblong, pointed - shaped somewhat like a hound's tongue - with long, channeled petioles; stem-leaves much smaller, and sessile or clasping by rounded or heart-shaped bases. Flowering stalk one to three feet tall, stout, leafy, branching near the top. Racemes terminal, simple or branching, lengthening as the flowers mature; the latter reddish purple, the corolla funnel-form, five-lobed, less than a half-inch broad, with five included stamens, a single style and deeply four-lobed ovary. The hairy calyx enlarges as the burs mature; these are comprised of four pointed obovoid, compressed, nutlets, each about a quarter-inch long, covered with short, barbed prickles, and forming a small pyramid with the withered style for its peak, to which they are attached so slightly that a touch from a passing animal or a garment will detach and carry them away. (Fig. 231.)

Means Of Control

Deep cutting of the crown leaves, with spud or hoe, in late fall or early spring. Fruiting stalks should be cut close to the ground before the first flowers mature.

Fig. 231. -Hound's Tongue (Cynoglossum officinale). X 1/8.