Magenta to Pink 



involucre of many overlapping leathery bracts, tipped with 

 hooked bristles. Stem / 2 to s ft. high, simple or branching, 

 coarse. Leaves: Large, the lower ones often i ft. long, 

 broadly ovate, entire edged, pale or loosely cottony beneath, 

 on hollow petioles. 



Preferred Habitat — Waste ground, waysides, fields, barnyards. 



Flowering Season — ^J uly — October. 



Distribution — Common throughout our area. Naturalized from 

 Europe. 



A larger burdock than this {A. Lappa) maybe more common 

 in a few localities East, but wherever one wanders, this plebeian 

 boldly asserts itself. In close-cropped pastures it still flourishes 

 with the well-armed thistles and mulleins, for the great leaves 

 contain an exceedingly bitter, sour juice, distasteful to grazers. 

 Nevertheless the unpaid cattle, like every other beast and man, 

 must nolens volens transplant the burs far away from the parent 

 plant to found new colonies. Literally by hook or by crook they 

 steal a ride on every switching tail, every hairy dog and woolly 

 sheep, every trouser-leg or petticoat. Even the children, who 

 make dolls and baskets of burdock burs, aid them in their insati- 

 ate love of travel. Wherever man goes, they follow, until, having 

 crossed Europe — with the Romans } — they are now at home 

 throughout this continent. Their vitality is amazing ; persecu- 

 tion with scythe and plow may retard, but never check their vic- 

 torious march. Opportunity for a seed to germinate may not 

 come until late in the summer ; but at once the plant sets to work 

 putting forth flowers and maturing seed, losing no time in de- 

 veloping superfluous stalk and branches. Butterflies, which, like 

 the Hoboken Dutch, ever delight in magenta, and bees of various 

 kinds, find these flowers, with a slight fragrance as an additional 

 attraction, generous entertainers. 



Pink, of all colors, is the most unstable in our flora, and the most 

 likely to fade. Magentas incline to purple, on the one hand, or to pure 

 pink on the other, and delicate shades quickly blanch when long exposed to 

 the sun^s rays. Thus 7cie frequently fi?id white blossoms of the once pink 

 rhododendron, laurel, azalea, bouncing Bet, and turtle-head. Albinos, 

 too, regularly occur in numerous species. Many colored flowers sho7u a 

 tendency among individuals to revert to the white type of their ancestors. 

 The reader should bear these facts in mind, and search for his unidentified 

 flo7ver in the previous section or in the following one if this group does 

 not contain it. 



150 



