TAR WEED (Madia Slegans, Don.). Flower heads yellow, 

 of both ray and disk florets, the showy rays about f inch long, 

 acutely 3-lobed and often with a dark red spot at the base, 

 opening at evening and closing the next morning; the involucre 

 angled by the keel-shaped bracts, of which each completely 

 enfolds the seed of its corresponding ray; heads axillary and 

 terminal. Leaves narrow, alternate, the basal crowded, 6 

 inches long or more, the upper much smaller, and sticky 

 with gland-tipped hairs. A stout, gummy annual, 2 to 5 feet 

 high, common on hills from Southern California to Oregon, 

 and east to Nevada; blooming in summer. 



The appearance of this flower suggests a Coreopsis, but as it 

 is a night-owl among blossoms, many people never see the 

 flower and know the plant only to be repelled by its unpleas- 

 ant stickiness of stem and leaf. This is the showiest of sev- 

 eral species of Madia, whose seeds entered largely into the food 

 supply of the Pacific Coast Indians. The name is a modifica- 

 tion of the Chilean word Modi, applied to a species (M. saliva, 

 Mol.) growing in Chile as well as in California, whose oily seeds 

 yield an oil once used in cooking. 



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