140 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 
Britain beyond the border. It is hardly a native 
plant and best regarded as a colonist. 
This being so we shall expect to find it in cornfields 
or upon their borders, on roadsides about gateways, 
or the open ground formed by stone heaps used for 
macadam. Gardens, waste places, and similar ground 
around houses or in villages are other suitable habitats. 
Two or three plants grow together. The stem is 
erect with ascending branches. The sessile leaves 
are alternate, pinnatifid, with linear, subulate 
segments, glabrous and dark green. 
The flowers of the disc are yellow, the ray flowers 
white. The receptacle is conical. The setaceous 
phyllaries are shorter than the flat disc florets. There 
is no pappus. The fruit is strongly ribbed on the 
back. 
The Stinking Mayweed is 1 ft. in height. It is 
in flower from June to September. The white ray 
florets are neuter, the flat disc flowers bisexual, and 
the tube is fringed with five teeth. The scent of the 
flowers is strong and disagreeable, hence the English 
name, and this forms a distinction between this plant 
and the Scentless Mayweed, which has a larger flower 
and a generally darker green colour. 
As the flowers are conspicuous they are often 
cross-pollinated, though as acorn plant insect visitors 
are not so frequent as in the case of plants that grow 
in the open. 
As the fruit is winged it is adapted to dispersal by 
the wind. 
