f DESCRIPTIONS OF SOME COMMON WEEDS 157 



gated chiefly by means of seed, from 300 to 2,500 seeds 

 sometimes being produced by a single cluster of plants 

 which have started from a single seed. Seeds are easily 

 carried by the wind and by animals. Found abundantly 

 in meadows and pastures, especially along roadsides in all 

 parts of the West from the Great Lakes to the Pacific, 

 and particularly obnoxious because the seeds and small 

 pieces of the plant sometimes cause serious injury to 

 stock by making their way into the gums and jaws and 

 between the teeth, thus causing inflammation and the 

 formation of pus. 



Other species of wild barley are abundant in the United 

 States. The H. secalinum is a very troublesome weed in 

 Utah and the Pacific coast. It is much like the little bar- 

 ley. Another form, much like squirrel-tail, but with more 

 slender spikes, is common from Utah to Montana and 

 Wyoming, the //. caespitosum. 



Sedge Family (Cyperaceae). Grasslike or rushlike 

 herbs, with fibrous roots, generally solid stems, which are 

 either round, triangular or flattened ; leaves with closed 

 sheaths; flowers in spikes, chiefly with three stamens; 

 styles two, three or rarely undivided ; fruit an achene ; 

 ovary one-celled with a single <erect ovule. 



Northern Nut Grass (Cyperus csculentus, L.). A grass- 

 like plant, but distinguished from the true grasses by its 

 triangular stems ; when young, leafy at the base, later the 

 leaves terminate the stem ; flowers arranged in spikes, 

 each consisting of numerous spikelets, which bear from 

 twelve to thirty light chestnut or straw-colored flowers; 

 scales of the spikelets rough margined ; achene longer 

 than broad. Plant spreads extensively by its under- 

 ground nutlike tubers and, in rainy seasons especially, 

 is in evidence everywhere in the state, its yellow color 

 making patches of it easily visible at a distance; most 

 troublesome in early spring; common in low grounds. 



Southern Nut Grass (Cyperus rotundus, L.). A long- 



