Teacher's Leaflet. 1205 



curious glandular secretion, which looks like meal, and the more thrifty the plant 

 the mealier it becomes. 



BIENNIAL WEEDS 



Burdock and mullein have been chosen for description as they are 

 most likely to be familiar to all country children, but other biennial 

 weeds, such as wild carrot, pasture thistle, teasel and evening prim- 

 rose, are equally interesting and may be studied in the same manner. 



Burdock {Arctium lappa). — Like many other plant pests of America, this sturdy 

 weed is a tramp from Europe, probably stealing passage across the ocean attached 

 to an innocent cow or sheep. From the moment that its plump green seed- 

 leaves pull themselves from their mottled brown coat and open wide to the sun, 

 it shows a most selfish crowding disposition, for it rapidly develops a long fleshy 

 taproot, fringed all around with numerous fine feeding roots, and crowned with 

 a straggling rosette of long-stemmed, coarsely veined and hairy leaves, sprawling 

 in all directions and choking out all lesser and worthier growths within reach. 

 Now is the time to do battle with this " hoodlum " among plants and not a rosette 

 should be allowed to send up a fruiting stalk. If the hoe has failed of its duty 

 with the seedlings, the sharp bladed spud should now come into action and divide 

 each crown of leaves from its root as deeply as the spud can cut. If merely shaved 

 at the top the food-filled root will immediately crown itself anew, but deep and 

 continued cutting will conquer and prevent multiplication of the pests. 



Nevertheless, few country neighborhoods are without burdock in all stages of 

 growth, and it is most interesting to study its remarkable manner of growing, so 

 as to shade down all the struggling plants near it without getting at all in its 

 own light. The lower leaves are very large, with long, strong petioles, and are 

 held out horizontally; the next tier grows out above and between them, with 

 a little shorter stems that are lifted at a polite angle so as not to shade the tier 

 below, a courtesy that characterizes all the leaves of the plant; each higher 

 leaf is smaller, narrower, and has a shorter petiole which is lifted at a narrower 

 angle from the stalk, and all are so nicely adjusted as to form a tall, green pyramid 

 with the sunlight sifting through to every part. The leaves are light-green and 

 felt-like on the under side, darker above, strongly ribbed and veined, and with 

 roughly notched and ruffled edges which save them from being torn by the wind; 

 the stems are grooved to conduct dew and rain to the thirsty root, and they widen 

 at the base to clasp the main stalk with a certain vicious pertinacity which is 

 characteristic of the whole plant. 



The flowers grow in crowded clusters at the leaf axils and it is amazing to see 

 the number of flower-heads that one thrifty plant will develop, each one of which 

 is itself a whole colony, ready to emigrate and start life in new ground. The 

 individual flowers are beautiful, with five-lobed corollas, each a long, slim, pink 

 tube; the ring of anthers is purple, the pollen and stigmas white. The seeds, when 

 ripe, are beautifully mottled in gray and purplish blown, and each has a short 

 silvery fluff or pappus at the top — but that is just a trait of the Composite family 

 for the seeds are never carried Vjy it, as they have a better means of locomotion. 

 The flower-family is crowded within and guarded by an involucre of bristling 

 spines, every one hooked at the tip. The lower ones stand straight out, those 

 above rise at differing angles, making the flower-head almost globular, a veritable 



