260 Minnesota Plant Life. 



their peculiar forms; but rather on account of the presence in 

 the soil of salt in such quantities that, if the plant had a large 

 evaporative surface, it would absorb so much salt-water from 

 the soil to meet the evaporation that its tissues would become 

 surfeited with saline deposits. 



The other saline plant, known as the western blite, occurs 

 in the Red river valley, in the region of Pembina and St. Vin- 

 cent. It is a fleshy herb, with thick or cylindrical leaves quite 

 sessile upon the twigs. It maintains the same generally suc- 

 culent character that characterizes the glasswort, but has not 

 undergone so great a reduction of its leaf-tract. 



FIG. 121. Poke-weed. After Chesnut. F. B. 86, U. S. Dept. Ag. 



Russian thistle. Another variety of pigweed, not native to 

 the state, but introduced in large numbers, has excited a great 

 deal of attention on account of its rapid development in the 

 wheat fields of the Red river valley. This is the Russian thistle, 

 a tumbling weed, succulent when young, but turning hard, dry 

 and thorny when older. A variety of plant very similar to the 

 Russian thistle is found along the Atlantic seacoast. It has 

 not, however, the bushy branches of the thistle. 



Coxcombs. The amaranths or coxcombs also include a very 

 common tumbleweed which grows in globular form, two or 



