l6o WEEDS OF THE FARM AND GARDEN 



Star-of-Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum, L.). 

 Plants growing in tufts ; bulbs ovoid ; scape slender, four 

 to rune inches high ; flowers corymbose, opening in sun- 

 shine ; perianth of six white, spreading segments, oblong, 

 lanceolate, white above, greenish beneath. Naturalized 

 from Europe, common in lawns and roadsides, eastward 

 and south to Kentucky. 



Pepper Family (Piperaceae). Perennial herbs with al- 

 ternate, entire broad leaves ; flowers small, incom- 

 plete, in bracted spikes; calyx and corolla want- 

 ing; stamens six to eight, free from the ovary; ovary 

 with few straight ovules; seed globose or ovoid; endo- 

 sperm mealy, copious ; embryo small ; fruit a capsule or 

 berrylike. A small order of four species. In the South 

 represented by the lizard's tail (Saururus cernuus), which 

 occurs in swamps and shallow water. 



Yerba Mansa (Anemopsis calif ornica, Hook.). An 

 acrid, perennial herb with thick, strongly pungent, astrin- 

 gent and. aromatic creeping rootstock and jointed or 

 scapelike stem, one-half to one and one-half feet high, 

 with a broadly ovate leaf, clasping above the middle, and 

 a fascicle of one to three small, petioled leaves in the 

 axil ; radical leaves thick, elliptical oblong, rounded 

 above, more or less narrowed toward the cordate base, 

 two to six inches long, somewhat ciliate ; petioles about 

 equaling or shorter than the blade, dilated and sheathing 

 at the very base ; bracts of involucre white, five to eight, 

 persistent, rounded and oblong; flowers in a close conical 

 spike, each flower subtended by a white bract; stamens 

 six to eight, short filaments adnate to base ; ovary sunk 

 in rachis of spike, one-celled, of three to four carpels, with 

 as many spreading stigmas and parietal placentae; seeds 

 rounded, punctulate. In moist saline localities from the 

 Sacramento to Southern California and eastward to 

 Southern Utah and the Rio Grande. 



Nettle Family (Urticaceae). Herbs, shrubs or trees 



