[*][*] Calyx closing or the lobes erect in fruit, clothed with spreading hairs, some minutely hooked or gland-tipped; corolla small; annual or biennial.
2. M. arvénsis, Hoffm. Hirsute with spreading hairs, erect or ascending (6–15´ high); leaves oblong-lanceolate, acutish; racemes naked at the base and stalked; corolla blue, rarely white; pedicels spreading in fruit and longer than the 5-cleft equal calyx.—Fields, etc.; not very common. (Eu.)
3. M. vérna, Nutt. Bristly-hirsute, branched from the base, erect (4–12´ high); leaves obtuse, linear-oblong, or the lower spatulate-oblong; racemes leafy at the base; corolla very small, white, with a short limb; pedicels in fruit erect and appressed at the base, usually abruptly bent outward near the apex, rather shorter than the deeply 5-cleft unequal (somewhat 2-lipped) very hispid calyx.—Dry ground, rather common. May–July.
M. versícolor, Pers. More slender than the last, simple at base; racemes loose, mostly naked at base; flowers almost sessile; corolla pale yellow changing to blue or violet; calyx deeply and equally 5-cleft.—Fields, Del. (Nat. from Eu.)
7. LITHOSPÉRMUM, Tourn. Gromwell. Puccoon.
Corolla funnel-form, or sometimes salver-shaped; the open throat naked, or with a more or less evident transverse fold or scale-like appendage opposite each lobe; the spreading limb 5-cleft, its lobes rounded. Anthers oblong, almost sessile, included. Nutlets ovate, smooth or roughened, mostly bony or stony, fixed by the base; scar nearly flat.—Herbs, with thickish and commonly red roots and sessile leaves; flowers solitary and as if axillary, or spiked and leafy-bracted, sometimes dimorphous as to insertion of stamens and length of style. (Name formed of λίθος, stone, and σπέρμα, seed, from the hard nutlets.)
§ 1. Nutlets tubercled or rough-wrinkled and pitted, gray and dull; throat of the (nearly white) corolla destitute of any evident folds or appendages.
L. arvénse, L. (Corn Gromwell.) Minutely rough-hoary, annual or biennial; stems erect (6–12´ high); leaves lanceolate or linear, veinless; corolla scarcely longer than the calyx.—Sandy banks and roadsides. May–Aug. (Nat. from Eu.)
§ 2. Nutlets smooth and shining, white like ivory; corolla greenish-white or pale-yellow, small, with 5 distinct pubescent scales in the throat; perennial.
L. officinàle, L. (Common Gromwell.) Much branched above, erect (1–2° high); leaves thinnish, broadly lanceolate, acute, with a few distinct veins, rough above, soft-pubescent beneath; corolla exceeding the calyx.—Roadsides, N. Eng. to Minn. (Nat. from Eu.)