DESCRIPTIONS OP SOME COMMON WEEDS 



207 



nately compound leaves, smooth or somewhat pubescent, 

 calyx teeth obsolete; petals yellow, fruit oval, glabrous, 

 flattened dorsally; seeds flat. Common in the northern 

 states and on the Pacific coast, where it has escaped from 

 cultivation. 



Wild Carrot (Daucus Carota, L.). An erect biennial, 

 sometimes annual, growing from one to three feet tall; 

 with deep, conical, fleshy root; lower and basal leaves 

 two to three pinnate, segments being linear or lanceolate 

 in shape, toothed and lobed, up- 

 per leaves smaller and less 

 divided than the lower; bracts 

 of involucre parted into thread- 

 like divisions which close more 

 or less closely around the bud, 

 giving it the delicate lacy ap- 

 pearance which has caused the 

 plant to be called Queen Anne's 

 lace ; flowers in umbels, two to 

 four inches broad, with numer- 

 ous, crowded rays, the inner 

 shorter than the outer, making 

 upper surface of blooming um- 

 bel concave; pedicels 

 slender, one-half to two inches 

 long in fruit; flowers white, the" central one of each umbel 

 as well as the central flower of each umbellet being 

 sometimes purple ; occasionally entire cluster is pinkish ; 

 fruit one and one-half to two inches long, bristly with 

 winged ribs. Found in waste fields and rapidly becoming 

 a troublesome weed in Iowa. It is the original plant 

 from which the cultivated carrot has been developed. 



The small carrot (D. pitsillns) is a biennial with finely 

 dissected leaves, leaf segments linear, smaller than the 

 wild carrot; stem retrorsely hispid. 



Fig. 133. Water hemlock 

 ver y (Cicuta bulbl f era). (C. M. 

 King.) 



