i86 



WEEDS OF THE FARM AND GARDEN 



Showy Cinquefoil (Potentilla fruticosa, L.). A woody 

 perennial with an erect, shrubby stem from one to four 

 feet high ; pinnate leaves of five to seven leaflets ; yellow 

 flowers. It is cultivated as an ornamental plant, but be- 

 comes weedy in some parts of the East, especially in 

 Vermont, where Prof. L. R. Jones says it "is the most 

 aggressive weed invader known, 

 taking almost complete possession 

 of the pastures and even pushing 

 into tilled lands." It has a great 

 abundance of seeds, which are 

 scattered by the wind as freely as 

 are dandelion seeds. The plant 

 also sprouts freely from the crown 

 when that has been cut back. 



Silver Weed (Potentilla Anseri- 

 na, L.). An herbaceous peren- 

 nial, growing in marshes and wet 

 grounds; leaves all radical, pin- 

 nately-compound ; leaflets seven 

 to twenty-one, with smaller ones 

 interposed, oblong, sharply ser- 

 rate, silky underneath ; bractlets 

 Fig. 119. Five-finger an< ^ stipules present, both some- 

 (Potentilla monspeliensis). times cleft incisely ; flowers soli- 

 tary, yellow, petals five, calyx 



five-cleft, the bractlets arranged alternately with the 

 sepals, thus giving the appearance of a ten-cleft calyx ; 

 stamens many. This weed spreads by means of its 

 slender, jointed runners, much in the same way that the 

 strawberry does. 



White Avens (Geum canadense, Jacq.). A smoothish 

 or often pubescent perennial, slender stem two feet or 

 more high ; root leaves with three to five leaflets, the 

 terminal one broadly ovate or obovate ; stem leaves three- 

 divided or lobed, calyx bell-shaped or deeply cleft, 



