DESCRIPTIONS OF SOME COMMON WEEDS 



245 



from gardens to roadsides along the Atlantic coast and 

 as far west as Iowa and Kansas. 



Wormwood ((Artemisia biennis, Willd.). An aromatic, 

 somewhat bitter, smooth annual or biennial, from one to 

 three feet high, with leafy stems and erect branches ; 

 lower leaves twice pinnately-parted, the upper pinnatifid, 

 lobes linear or linear-oblong, serrate or cut-toothed ; ray- 

 flowers absent; heads numerous in short 

 axillary spikes; bracts of involucre green, 

 scarious, margined. Common in the north- 

 ern Mississippi Valley; now widely dis- 

 tributed east to Nova Scotia and south to 

 Kentucky. 



Western Mugwort (Artemisia Ludo^ici- 

 ana, Nutt.). A branching perennial; 

 leaves and stems white woolly; leaves 

 lanceolate, the upper usually entire, lower 

 cut-toothed ; heads in narrow panicles, ray- 

 flowers absent ; involucre of dry and scari- 

 ous scales; receptacle naked; flowers small, 

 yellowish ; achenes obovoid ; no pappus. 

 Common on dry hills from Illinois north 

 to Saskatchewan and southwest to Texas, Wormwood (^r- 

 Colorado and Utah. The common mug- *' misia biennis), 



. _, , . . . . A common weed 



wort of Europe (A. vulgans) closely re- h, the West and 

 lated to the above species, has the lower North. (C. M. 

 leaves glabrous above, white -woolly be- 

 neath and pinnatifid ; heads small in open panicles. Nat- 

 uralized around dwellings eastward. The common sage 

 brush of the West is A. tridentata. Absinth, A. absinth- 

 ium, is shrubby and finely canescent ; naturalized eastward. 

 Fireweed (Erechtites hieracifolia, (L.) Raf.). An 

 erect, coarse annual of rank odor and having a grooved 

 stem, often hairy; leaves alternate, simple, lanceolate or 

 oblong, acute, cut-toothed, the upper with auricled base; 

 heads many flowered ; receptacle hooked ; flowers tubular 



Fig. 



55 



