160 FARM WEEDS OF CANADA 



TRIBE SENECIONEAE 



COMMON RAGWORT (Senecio Jacohaea L.) 



Other English names: Stinking Willie, Baughlan, Tansy 

 Ragwort, Staggerwort, St. James'-wort. 



Introduced from Europe, Perennial from few shallow, 

 short, thick rootstocks. Under cultivation many plants, after 

 flowering the second year, die without making any offsets. 

 Whole plant almost hairless or with tufts of woolly hairs at the 

 base of the leaves and flower heads and straggling hairs over 

 the whole surface. Stem stiff, erect, grooved, 2 to 3 feet; much 

 branched above. Root-leaves 6 to 8 inches long, stalked; stem- 

 leaves stalkless, embracing the stem; all leaves dark green, 

 deeply twice pinnatifid, the segments crowded and overlapping, 

 crisped and waved. Flower heads golden-yellow and very 

 showy; 3/4 inch across; numerous, erect, arranged in flat-topped, 

 dense, compound corymbs. 



The seeds (Plate 76, fig. 86) are about 1/12 of an inch long, 

 creamy white, oblong, excavated at the top, with a small central 

 point, deeply grooved along the sides; those of the centre 

 almost straight, more or less angled, with short bristles; those 

 of the ray-flowers smooth, much curved and broader; pap- 

 pus white. 



Time of flowering: July till November; seed ripe by August. 



Propagation: By seeds and by a few offsets from the base 

 of the stem. 



Occurrence: Abundant in Pictou and Antigonish counties 

 in NoA^a Scotia and in parts of Prince Edward Island; also re- 

 ported from Quebec and the township of Puslinch in Ontario, 

 It looks as though Ragwort had been imported into Nova Scotia 

 from Scotland and into Prince Edward Island from Ireland, 

 where it is known under the same name, Baughlan, as it bears 

 in its new home. 



