172 COMMON WEEDS 



and may encroach upon arable fields. It should be 

 regularly cut down to prevent seeding, and in arable 

 land should be hoed or hand pulled according to the 

 stage of growth. 



RUBIACE^E 



Yellow Bedstraw (Galiutn verum L.) is closely related 

 to Common Cleavers or Goose Grass (see p. 83). It 

 attains i to 3 feet in height, and has many slender 

 angular stems, and rough, small linear leaves, arranged 

 (8 to 12) in a whorl. The small golden-yellow flowers 

 appear in June to September, and grow in dense cymes 

 from the leaf axils and from the end of the stems. The 

 plant is perennial, and is propagated by seeds and a 

 stoloniferous rootstock. It occurs plentifully on grass 

 land on sandy, loamy, and calcareous soils. 



Cutting to exhaust the plant and prevent seeding is 

 recommended, with manurial treatment to improve the 

 condition of the herbage. 



DIPSACE^: 



Wild Teazle (Dipsacus sylvestris L.) occurs plenti- 

 fully in some districts in hedges, by ditches, and in 

 rough damp meadow land, especially on -clay and 

 calcareous soils. It is a tall, stout, prickly plant, with 

 large opposite sessile leaves which are prickly on the 

 midrib beneath. The lilac flowers, appearing in August 

 and September, occur in dense, heads, which are large 

 and conical, covered with straight bristly bracts. (In 

 the cultivated Fuller's Teazle (Dipsacus Fullonum L.) the 

 bracts are hooked.) This plant, being a biennial, is 

 propagated by seeds ; it disappears if regularly cut 

 down before the flowers mature. 



Field Scabious (Scabiosa arvensis L.) is a deep-rooted 



