WEED MIGRATION 751 



(Wallace). J. Bnrtt Davy reported it from central California in 

 the nineties. 



Marsh Elder (Iva xanthifolia). 



Dr. Gray in the fifth and sixth editions of the manual gave its 

 distribution, "Northwest Wisconsin to Minnesota, Kansas and 

 westward." Originally this must have been a local weed in Wis- 

 consin and eastern Minnesota. Upham in 1890 mentions it as one 

 of the most aggressive weeds of Red river, especially in waste 

 places. Parry includes it in his list of plants collected in the 

 upper Mississippi valley in 1848. It is not improbable that this 

 plant was brought to eastern Minnesota and Wisconsin by the early 

 voyagers, the Indians or the white settlers. It is a weed of the 

 open and cultivated soil, especially near habitations. The early 

 settlers in the Red river valley gave to it the name of "half breed 

 weed" because so commonly found near the habitations of the 

 half breeds who lived in that section of Minnesota, Manitoba and 

 Dakota. There are early records of the weed, however. Hall 

 mentions its occurrence near Athens, Illinois, in 1863. This was 

 after Hall had returned from his trip to the Rocky mountains. He 

 may have thrown away some of the seed, which germinated and 

 produced plants. It was a common plant in the Rocky mountains, 

 as reports of such botanists as Parry, Vasey, Hall, Fendler, M. E. 

 Jones, Suksdorf, Cusick, Kelsey, Brandegee, Havard, Bigelow, 

 (Camanche Plains, 1853) and others indicate its abundance. 

 Though reported from Charles City by Arthur in 1871 it has not 

 made much progress east of the Missouri river basin. Its dis- 

 tribution and date of appearance may be seen from the following: 

 Boone, 1890 (Pammel) ; Keokuk, 1890 (Rolfs) ; Woodbine, Vale, 

 Eagle Grove, Mason City, and Carroll, 1894 (Pammel) ; Armstrong, 

 1897 (Cratty) ; Ogclen and Slater, 1896; Hanlontown and Ames, 

 1902 (Pammel) ; Decatur county, 1911 (Anderson). It was a fre- 

 quent and abundant weed from Sioux City to Council Bluffs and 

 probably south to Hamburg ; reported at Independence, and, in 

 1876, at Humboldt, by Harvey. It had been reported from Emmet 

 county as early as 1875, having been introduced with cattle. It 

 has not spread very rapidly at any of these interior points. It 

 was reported in St. Paul in 1861 (T. J. Hale) and it was abundant 

 along the highway on a bank near La Crescent, Minnesota, in 1884. 

 It now occurs in Hokah, Brownsville, and other points along the 

 river (1910). In the early nineties it appeared in Onalaska, Wis- 



