112 THE INDIANA WEED BOOK. 



which preys upon both clover and alfalfa as well as many other 

 plants. It is pale yellow, has the scales of the corolla tube fringed 

 and the capsule bursts irregularly. Twining to the top of the clover 

 stem or other host it throws out branches and rapidly spreads from 

 plant to plant, often forming a dense yellow carpet of tangled 

 threads which cover and weigh down the crop. The seeds are 

 double the size of those of clover dodder and are therefore very 

 difficult to separate from those of clover. They are gray, light 

 brown or pale yellow in hue, rounded on one side and flattened or 

 angled on the other. 



Where found in small patches mowing or digging and burning 

 is the only sure method of getting rid of this species. Where more 

 widely spread, thorough cultivation should be used. 



75. CUSCUTA GRONOVII Willd. Common Dodder. Onion Dodder. Wild 



Dodder. (A. N. 3.) 



Stems bright yellow, slender, high climbing. Flowers short-stalked in 

 dense clusters; corolla bell-shaped, lobes spreading, its scales thickly 

 fringed about the summit of the tube. Capsule globose, short pointed. 



Very common along streams and marshes, climbing high over 

 many kinds of herbs and shrubs, occasionally also in dry upland 

 fields. July-Sept. Often attacking onions grown in the muck 

 soils of northern Indiana, Along the streams its yellow yarn-like 

 stems cover large clumps of the water willow and gleam in the Au- 

 gust sunshine like some great mass of gold dropped down along 

 the lowest levels where the placid waters flow. Remedies: mowing 

 and burning. 



Other wild species there are, as the smartweed dodder, which 

 attacks golden-rods and smartweeds ; the button-bush dodder which 

 preys mainly upon the shrub of that name, and the massive dodder 

 whose hosts are the larger Compositae like the sunflowers, the great 

 ragweed and wild lettuce. Its flowers and stems are twisted to- 

 gether so as to form a rope-like mass sometimes an inch thick, 

 whose coils encircle its hosts. All are confirmed parasites, sap- 

 suckers of high degree, whose only redeeming quality is that some 

 of them prey upon other weeds and thus aid somewhat in keeping 

 in subjection these omnipresent foes of the farmer. 



THE BORAGE FAMILY. BORAGINACE^. 



Chiefly rough hairy herbs with alternate entire leaves, and 

 regular flowers borne mostly on one side of the branches of a spike 

 or raceme which unrolls or straightens as the flowers unfold. 

 Calyx 5-parted; corolla gamopetalous, 5-lobed; stamens 5, inserted 



