WEEDS OF THE GOOSEFOOT FAMILY. 



71 



the vicinity of towns, the prevailing growth along the immediate 

 sloping banks of the Ohio, Wabash and other streams. The seeds 

 of both are salable at drug stores, the price ranging from 6 to 8 

 cents a pound. The oil distilled from the seeds is worth about 

 $1.50 per pound. 



28. ATBIPLEX PATULA L. Spreading Orache. (A. I. 2.) 



Stem much branched, half erect, spreading, dark green, glabrous or 

 somewhat scurfy ; lower leaves lanceolate, slender-stalked, usually toothed 

 or 3-lobed below the middle ; upper ones linear, nearly sessile, often entire. 

 Flowers in clusters arranged in interrupted leafy spikes, small, greenish, 

 the two sexes separate; staminate flowers with a 3-5 parted calyx and 

 the same number of stamens; pistillate ones without calyx, but with 2 

 more or less united leaf-like bracts at base which partly or wholly enclose 

 the utricle. Seeds like those of lamb's quarters. 



Frequent along railway em- 

 bankments, roadsides and in waste 

 places and old fields, especially 

 about cities and towns. June- Aug. 

 This is an Eastern weed which is 

 gradually spreading westward. In 

 Indiana it has been recorded from 

 Steuben, Hamilton, Marion and 

 Tippecanoe counties and is very 

 common about Indianapolis and 

 Lafayette. The halberd - leaved 

 orache (A. hastata L., Fig. 38) dif- 

 fering mainly in having the lower 

 leaves only once or twice as long 

 as wide, triangular with pointed 

 lobes at base, is also recorded from 

 Wells and Madison counties. Both 

 form broad masses 1 or 2 feet high 

 and often several feet in diameter. 

 They are vile weeds of the same character as lamb 's quarters and 

 pigweed and when discovered should be destroyed at once. Rem- 

 edies : pulling or deep hoe cutting before the seeds ripen. 



29. SALSOLA TRAGUS L. Russian Thistle. Russian Cactus. (A. I. 1.) 

 Stem bushy-branched, ascending or spreading, 1-3 feet high and twice 



as broad, the outer branches and leaves usually bright red when full 

 grown ; leaves when young linear, 2 inches or more in length and inch 

 wide, spine-tipped; these replaced on the later flowering branches by 

 sharp stiff spines in clusters of 3. Flowers purplish, solitary in the axils, 

 with a spiny bract each side; calyx membranous, very strongly veined. 



Fig. 38. (After Selby.) 



