DESCRIPTIONS OF SOME COMMON WEEDS 



177 



Pusley, Purslane (Portulaca olcracca, L.). A fleshy, 

 prostrate, smooth annual, with scattered, obovate or 

 wedge-shaped leaves; small sessile flowers with a two- 

 cleft calyx, and five small yellow flowers inserted on the 

 calyx; stamens seven to twelve; style deeply five to six- 

 parted ; seeds small, finely rugose. Common everywhere 

 on cultivated and waste grounds. Probably indigenous 

 in the West and Southwest. Naturalized from Europe. 



Crowfoot Family (Ranuncula- 

 ceae). Herbs or a few woody 

 plants with acrid juice ; flowers 

 polypetalous or apetalous, regu- 

 lar or irregular ; calyx free, often 

 colored like the corolla ; sepals 

 three to fifteen, petals three to 

 fifteen, or absent; stamens 

 numerous, and pistils few or 

 numerous, distinct; fruit a dry 

 pod, berries or achene (seed- 

 like) ; embryo minute, albumen 

 present. 



Cursed Crowfoot (Ranunculus 

 sccleratus, L.). A glabrous an- 

 nual, root leaves three-lobed, 

 rounded, lower stem, leaves 

 three-parted, lobes cut and 

 toothed, the upper leaves nearly 

 sessile; flowers small and numerous, petals pale yellow, 

 scarcely longer than the calyx; carpels small, barely 

 mucronate in oblong or cylindrical heads, juice of plant 

 acrid. Common in wet soil eastward and in the North 

 also in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado, and Utah. 



Small-flowered Crowfoot (Ranunculus abortivus, L.). 

 A smooth, glabrous, branching biennial, six inches to two 

 feet high ; root leaves round, heart-shaped or kidney- 

 shaped, stem leaves three-parted or three-lobed, nearly 



Fig. in. Cow herb(Sapon- 

 aria Vac can a). 



