114 



THE INDIANA WEED BOOK. 



long-stalked; stem leaves narrower, ovate-oblong, the uppermost sessile. 

 Flowers small, nearly white, in racemes which are bracted only at base. 

 Fruit globose, nearly 1/6 inch long, recurved; nutlets with margins and 

 usually the back thickly armed with prickles. 



Common in dry soil along borders of thickets, roadsides and in 

 open woods and old fields. June-Sept. Occurring with, it or in 

 similar places and about as common is a European species, the blue 

 bur or burseed (L. lappuld L.). It is an annual, 1-2 feet high, 

 clothed with short gray hairs and with the leaves linear or oblong, 

 sessile or stalked; the flowers pale blue, in leafy bracted 1-sided 

 racemes, and the fruit not curved downward. Among the various 

 fruits and seeds which rely upon animals for distribution, those of 

 these two beggars' lice are most troublesome, being especially an- 

 noying to horses, dogs, sheep and man. They are easily known by 

 being in groups of four and shaped somewhat like a quarter of an 

 apple. The tip of each little prickle is barbed upward like a har- 

 poon so that the burs are very difficult to remove from clothing. 

 Kemedies: pulling or mowing and burning; thorough cultivation; 

 late fall or early spring plowing. 



78. LITHOSPEKMUM ARVENSE L. Corn Gromwell. Wheat Thief. Pigeon- 

 weed. Redroot. (A. I. 2.) 



Erect, usually branched, 6-20 inches high, pale green clothed with 

 appressed grayish hairs; leaves linear or lanceolate, sessile without veins. 

 Flowers small, dull white, solitary and sessile in the axils of leafy bracts 

 along the spikes ; corolla tube not longer than the calyx, without scales or 

 folds. Nutlets hard, brown, conical, 1/10 inch long, wrinkled and pitted. 

 (Fig. 78.) 



Common in the northern half of the 

 State along railways, roadsides and in 

 cultivated fields; less common but 

 rapidly spreading southward. April- 

 Sept. Prefers dry, more or less sandy 

 soil, and where abundant especially 

 harmful to winter wheat> rye, and 

 meadows. The seeds often germinate 

 in late autumn, the plant then being a 

 winter annual, blooming and ripening 

 the lowermost seeds the next spring 

 before the winter cereals are cut. It 

 is therefore very difficult to remove 

 from grain fields. The seeds are frequent among those of wheat and 

 hay and are also distributed by birds, threshing machines and 



Fig. 78. (After Shaw.) 



