Annual bristly-hispid branched erect or diffuse herbs, with alternate leaves, and small blue or bluish flowers, in dense leafy-bracted terminal spike-like scorpioid racemes. Calyx 5-parted. Corolla slightly irregular, salverform, the tube curved, the limb somewhat unequally 5-lobed, the lobes obtuse, imbricated, the throat closed by hispid scales. Stamens 5, included, inserted on the tube of the corolla; filaments short; anthers obtuse at each end. Ovary 4-divided; style filiform. Nutlets 4, wrinkled, erect, attached by their bases to the flat receptacle, the scar of attachment concave. [Greek, wolf-face.]

About 4 species, natives of the Old World, the following typical.

1. Lycopsis Arvensis L. Small Bugloss. Fig- 3550

Lycopsis arvensis L. Sp. Pl. 139. 1753.

Stem erect or ascending, at length divergently or diffusely branched, 1°-2° high, the branches becoming procumbent. Leaves lanceolate, narrowly oblong or the lower oblanceolate, obtuse, 1'-2' long, undulate or dentate, sessile, or the lower narrowed into petioles, the upper much smaller and acute or acutish; flowers numerous, crowded, 2"-3" broad, very short-pedicelled; calyx-segments lanceolate, acute, nearly as long as the curved corolla-tube; nutlets shorter than the calyx.

In fields and waste places, Nova Scotia to Ontario, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Naturalized or adventive from Europe. Native also of Asia. June-Sept.