THE WEEDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 127 



Plants." During thirty-five years it has traversed the United States, from 

 the Atlantic to the Pacific, and has established many permanent colonies 

 by the way. In New South Wales I recorded it as a new weed before the 

 Royal Society of New South Wales in November, 1903, and in the Agricul- 

 tural Gazette, February, 1904, and April, 1905, although there is no doubt 

 it has been in the State long before that. 



The surmise in an article written in 1905 that it is spreading has been 

 amply confirmed, especially during the last few years. Most of our corrres- 

 pondents simply report it as a' new arrival, and are puzzled by it, but the 

 consensus of opinion, where it is expressed at all, is that it is not wanted, 

 although a few report that it has some forage value. In Britain, where 

 it is a native (a doubtful one according to some), it has not been recorded 

 as a fodder plant. , 



A whole countryside can be sown by one gust of wind from a few plants, 

 hence it is difficult of control by man. If a man's land were free of it 

 to-day, he cannot tell whether it will be not sown with it to-morrow. This 

 remark applies to thistles and allied plants generally. If only a few plants 

 are seen they should be cut down or eradicated before or during the flower- 

 ing season. If the seed is already in the land, one can only hope that the 

 precipitation of rain may not favour either the germination of the seed or 

 the development of the plant, for certain periods in the life of every plant 

 are critical as far as rainfall is concerned. 



Sow Thistle (Sonchus oleraceus L.). 



(COMPOSITE: Thistle or Daisy Family.) 



Popular Description. An annual with a yellow flower like a dandelion, 

 with a tap-root and an erect, branched stem, with toothed clasping leaves 

 It has a hollow stem and milky juice. 



Botanical Description. 



An erect, glabrous annual with hollow stem. Leaves alternate, sometimes 

 prickly toothed, the upper ones stem-clasping and undivided, the lower ones 

 usually pinnatifld. Flower-heads in a short corymbose terminal panicle. 

 Florets yellow, all ligulate. Achenes not beaked, with a pappus and numerous 

 fine simple bristles. 



Names. The name " Sow Thistle " is a very old English one. I do not 

 know that sows are especially identified with it, although pigs, in common 

 with all grazing animals, eat it greedily. It is not a thistle in the modern 

 sense of the term; a century or two back the word had a very extended 

 meaning and was applied to almost any plant that, after flowering, produced 

 thistle-down. 



In Sydney, where the old name has no special significance, it is most 

 commonly known as "cocky weed," as it is so frequently gathered for 

 cockatoos. 



Character as a Weed. This .is a pest of gardens, for its parachute-like 

 seeds settle on the land like a light cloud, and the weed springs 'up in a 

 tidy garden by the thousand. It is not poisonous, and the only way of deal- 

 ing with it is by hand-pulling. 



