PLATE 28. 



COMMON RAGWORT. Senecio Jacobaa, L. 



Other English names : Stinking Willie, Baughlan, Tansy Ragwort, 

 Staggerwort, St. James's-wort. 



Introduced. Perennial, shallow-rooted and short-lived. Rootstocks few, 

 short and thick from the base of the stem ; under cultivation many plants 

 after flowering the second year die without making any offsets. Stem stiff, 

 erect, grooved, 2 to 3 feet ; much branched above, forming a flat-topped dense 

 compound corymb. Root leaves 6 to 8 inches long, petioled. Stem leaves 

 sessile, embracing the stem; all leaves dark green, deeply twice-pinnatifid, 

 the segments crowded and overlapping, crisped and waved. Flower heads 

 numerous, erect and flat, golden yellow and very showy, f inch across. Seeds 

 [Plate 53, fig. 20 natural size and enlarged 8 times] creamy white, oblong, 

 excavated at the top, with a small central po^nt, deeply grooved along the 

 sides ; those of the disk with short bristles and almost straight, those of the 

 ray-flowers smooth and much curved; pappus white. As is frequently the 

 case in plants with composite flowers, this has seeds (achenes) of two different 

 forms, according to their position in the flower head ; those from the outside 

 being more curved than those in the centre, which are straighter, narrower 

 and more or less angled. Whole plant almost glabrous or with tufts of woolly 

 hairs at the base of the leaves and flower heads, and with straggling hairs 

 over the whole surface. 



Time of Flowering : July till November; seeds ripe August. 

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



Occurrence : Locally abundant in Pictou and Antigonish Counties in 

 Nova Scotia and in parts of Prince Edward Island, also reported from the 

 Province of Quebec. 



The history of this plant in Canada has been worked up by Dr. W. H. 

 Pethick in Nova Scotia, and by Rev. Father Burke and Mr. L. W. Watson 

 in Prince Edward Island ; and good work has been done by all of these 

 investigators in pointing out the danger of neglecting this weed. It would 

 appear as if the Ragwort had been imported into the two Provinces indepen- 

 dently, to Nova Scotia from Scotland, and to Prince Edward Island from 

 Ireland, where it is known under the same name, Baughlan, as is used in its> 

 new home. 



Injury: The chief injury by this weed is that, when eaten by cattle, it 

 causes a curious and fatal disease of the liver (hepatic cirrhosis). For many 

 years it had been suspected that the Ragwort was the direct cause of this 

 malady ; but recently this has been conclusively proved by a series of careful 

 experiments carried out by Dr. W. H. Pethick, of Antigonish, under the 

 direction of the Dominion Veterinary Director General, Dr. J. G. Ruther- 

 ford, and the disease previously supposed to be contagious has now been 

 removed from the list of affections de'alt with under the Animal Contagious 

 Diseases Act. 



Remedy : The eradication of this coarse conspicuous and dangerous plant 

 should certainly be possible on farm lands, now that land owners have proof 



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