784 



MANUAL OF POISONOUS PLANTS 



Distribution. Common from Texas to Missouri, Florida and Virginia, 

 especially in pastures and meadows and along roadsides. It is said to have been 

 widely scattered in the south after the war of the rebellion. 



Poisonous properties. It is often the cause of hitter milk in the south. 

 Dr. Chesnut says : 



The fine-leaved Sneezeweed has been reported from several of the Gulf States, where it is 

 a troublesome weed, fatal to horses and mules. It is not known to what extent cattle may feed 

 on the plant with impunity, but the bitter principle in milk and meat sometimes met with in 

 the Southern States is quite generally supposed to be due to these plants. 



It contains a narcotic poison. 



I 



Fig. 449. Fine-leaved sneezeweed (Helciiium 

 tenuifolium). Often the cause of "bitter-milk" 

 (Dewey, U. S. Dcpt. Agr.) 



18. Dyssodia Lag. Fetid Marigold 



Mostly annual or biennial herbs with strong .scent, dotted with large pellucid 

 glands ; leaves mostly finely dissected ; heads many-flowered, small, of both 

 tubular and ray flowers; involucre cylindrical or hemispherical, bracts in one 

 series united into a cup; receptacle flat, not chaffy, but with short bristles; ray 

 flowers pistillate, short ; disk flowers perfect ; achenes slender, 4-angled ; pappus 

 a row of chaffy scales dissected into rough bristles. A single species. 



