ROBIN'S PLANTAIN 



they form a thick, pinkish or pale-violet fringe around 

 the central yellow disk of the flower-head. There are 

 also some minor differences in the matter of involucre 

 and pappus. 



Robin's Plantain is the earliest Flcabane to bloom 

 at the north; it wears a finely cut, pale pinkish-violet 

 fringe around a flat, yellow disk of minute florets. It 

 is a rather sturdy-looking plant with a hairy stem 

 bearing at the summit not many flower-heads and 

 these rather large, with a tuft of obovate root-leaves 

 and usually equipped for the race of life with offsets 

 and runners. 



Upon its heels in middle May, covering great stretches 

 of fields in northern Ohio with a pinkish, misty cloud, 

 comes Erigeron Philadclphicus, the Common Fleabane, 

 a plant three to four feet high, with oblong leaves, the 

 upper clasping by a heart-shaped base, with margins 

 coarsely dentate; the lower spatulate, toothed, and 

 narrowed into short petioles. 



The flowers are pale-rose or flesh-colored heads of 

 very many narrow rays surrounding a flat, yellow 

 disk of innumerable, tubular florets. A Httle later and 

 lasting longer is Erigeron dnnuus, the Daisy Fleabane, 

 two to four feet high, which is an annual and found 

 about the edges of cultivated fields and lurking in 

 fence corners. 



This has many small flower-heads, the rays either 

 white or slightly tinged with purple. Often Robin's 

 Plantain and Common Fleabane possess the fields to- 

 gether, but the Daisy Fleabane possesses them for a 

 longer time. I am told these plants have some forage 

 value, but, beautiful as they are, the meadows are 

 better off without them. 



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