184 FLOWERS OF WASTE PLACES, ETC. 



some description. The first Greek (Latinized) name refers to the leaf 

 segments, which resemble a goat's foot. 



^ It is an erect plant, with a round, furrowed stem, finely furrowed 

 length-ways, and hollow, bearing branches above. The leaves above 

 are & 3-lobed, and minutely toothed; below they are stalkless, and two 

 or three times 3-lobed, and egg-shaped with a prolonged point. The 

 flowers are small and white, borne in wide flat umbels, with no calyx 



teeth, the petals unequal, 

 the fruit flattened laterally 

 with almost rounded seeds. 

 Goutweed grows to a 

 height of 2 ft. or more. 

 The flowers are in bloom in 

 May, June, and July. This 

 plant is a herbaceous peren- 

 nial and propagated by divi- 

 sion of the creeping rhiz- 

 omes, occurring usually in 

 beds. 



The flowers are numer- 

 ous and small. The styles 

 are slender and bent back, 

 and the petals inbent at 

 the point. It is visited by 

 numerous insects Diptera, 

 Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, 

 and Neuroptera. 



The flowers in the pri- 

 mary umbels are complete, 

 those of the second order 



having male florets in the middle, complete ones at the side. The 

 fruits are flattened and aided in wind dispersal, when ripe being semi- 

 detached, and jerked to a distance by the wind or passing herds. 



Goutweed is more or less a clay-loving plant addicted to a clay soil, 

 but as its distribution is largely artificial it may be found on sandy 

 loam or soil with some degree of humus in it in woods. 



The fungus Protomyces macrosporiis forms warts on the stem and 

 petioles, and Puccinia cegopodii causes swellings on the stem and mid- 

 rib, and Plasmopora nivea is also found upon it. 



A Hymenopterous insect, Tenthredo flava, and 2 moths, Depressaria 

 applana and Chauliodus illigerellus, feed upon it. 



Photo. J. H. Crabtr 



GOUTWEED (jEgopodium Podagraria, L.) 



