COMPOSITAE COMPOSITE FAMILY 
HORSEWEED. BUTTERWEED 
Erigeron canadensis L. 
There is no doubt about this plant being a weed. It is common 
everywhere in fields and waste places throughout North America 
except in the extreme north, and is widely distributed also in the 
Old world, in the West Indies and in ety 
South America. iW 
NE! ig 
eye 
The Horseweed is annual and us- 
ually somewhat bristly and hairy. It 
grows 3-10 feet high and the larger 
plants are much branched. The basal | 
and lower stem leaves are petioled and & 
cut lobed but the rest are mostly — 
linear and entire. 
The small heads are usually very 
numerous from June to killing frost. 
The bracts of the bell-shaped involucre 
are narrow and smooth, the outer 
shorter. The rays are white and num- 
erous but very short and inconspicuous. 
The disk flowers are yellowish. The 
akenes are somewhat flattened and the 
pappus is composed of numerous white 
bristles. 
The White Top or Sweet Scabious, 
Erigeron annuus (L.) Pers., is another 
annual species common especially in old 
meadows and orchards. The stem is 
branched, covered with spreading hairs t 
and usually 1-4 feet high. The leaves are | 
coarsely and sharply toothed. The lowest 
are ovate and taper into a short petiole, ¢C. 
or are lanceolate and sessile. There are " 
40-70 white or purple-tinged ray flowers which are about twice the 
length of the involucre. In this species the involucre is double, the 
inner part composed of slender bristles and the outer of scales. Rather 
numerous heads, somewhat more than one-half inch broad, are pro- 
duced from May to late autumn. 
You bold thing! thrusting ’neath the very nose 
Of her fastidious majesty, the rose, 
Even in the best ordained garden bed, 
Unauthorized, your smiling little head! 
o A Weed—GERTRUDE HALL 
355 
