Time of bloom: June to August. Seed time: July to September.
Range: New Brunswick to western Ontario and Minnesota, southward to the Gulf of Mexico. Habitat: Upland brushy pastures, thickets, borders of woods.
Sheep are the animals most likely to be grazing where this weed grows, and it is most damaging to their fleeces. Stems slender, two to four feet tall, branching at the top into a widely divergent panicle. The root-leaves are roundish ovate to heart-shaped, with long, slender petioles; these die away before the coming of the fruiting stalk in the second year; stem-leaves oblong-ovate to oval, pointed at base and tip, the lower ones petioled, the upper ones sessile, softly hairy on both sides. Racemes long, very slender, swung out almost horizontally; corolla bluish or nearly white, minute, its five lobes spread salver-form, the five stamens included in its tube. Burs globose, the four nutlets covered on margin and back with fine, barbed prickles. (Fig. 232.)
Means of control the same as for Lappula echinata.