266 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



to be more frequent in the south than the north, and 

 in Ireland. 



The habitat is dry banks, roadsides, waste places, 

 and cornfields. This plant grows often in associa- 

 tion with Corn Parsley. 



The habit is creeping or prostrate, then ascending 

 and wide-spreading. The stem is slender, wavy, 

 angled, solid, rough, with short, stiff hairs. The leaves 

 are twice pinnate, deeply divided almost to the base, 

 the leaflets small, narrow-pointed. The lower leaves 

 may be twice pinnate, the upper pinnate. 



The florets are regular, pink, small, borne on small, 

 nearly round, simple umbels or little heads, which 

 are nearly stalkless, dense, lateral, opposite a leaf, 

 and composed of two to three stout, hardly distinct 

 rays, or a simple cluster. The female florets are 

 nearly stalkless. There are no involucres. The 

 fruit is smaller than in other species ; the outer 

 fruits are covered with straight or hooked bristles, 

 those on the inner part of the umbels merely tuber- 

 cled. The spines are spreading, hooked or barbed. 



The flowers are in bloom between May and July, 

 and the plant is a herbaceous annual, 6 to i8 in. in 

 length, rarely ascending or erect. 



The flowers contain honey, and the anthers ripen 

 first. The species of Caucalis frequently have male 

 and complete flowers on the same plant, but some 

 are female, and the plant is distinctly polygamous, 

 the arrangement and distribution of the sexes being 

 variable. 



