194 



WEEDS OF THE FARM AND GARDEN 



sterile and fertile, the sterile having a five-parted calyx, 

 and five glands alternating with the obovate, lanceolate, 

 fringed petals ; fertile flowers more than one and crowded, 

 calyx seven to twelve-parted, petals wanting; styles two 

 or three-forked ; seed smooth and gray. A common weedy 

 plant distributed from Missouri to Texas, and from New 

 Jersey southward to Georgia and westward to Kansas. 



The seeds are sometimes im- 

 purities in alfalfa seeds. 



Three-seeded Mercury 

 (Acalypha virginica, L.). A 

 rather coarse, smooth or 

 hairy, reddish annual, often 

 turning purple ; grows one to 

 two feet high, and has long 

 petioled leaves, which are 

 ovate or oblong-ovate and 

 somewhat sparsely toothed ; 

 flowers monoecious, sterile 

 spikes shorter than the five .to 

 nine-cleft, leaflike bracts, fer- 

 tile flowers in short clusters ; 

 flowers few, one to three in 

 each axil ; seeds small, ovoid, 

 reddish or gray and striate. 

 They may be easily crushed 



between the fin ^ ers - hence the 



name, wax-ball, by which the 

 plant is sometimes known. Found in New England, On- 

 tario, and as far west as Wisconsin and Minnesota and 

 south to the Gulf. It appears about buildings and 'in 

 waste grounds, and the seeds are frequently an impurity 

 in clover seeds. 



Spurge (Euphorbia). The spurges are monoecious 

 shrubs or herbs with alternate or opposite groups of 

 leaves arranged in whorls; flowers surrounded by a cup- 



