1 83 WEEDS OF THE FARM AND GARDEN 



albuminous, or nearly so, or, in some cases, with copious 

 albumen. About 6,500 species of wide distribution, but 

 most abundant in the tropics. 



Partridge Pea (Cassia Chamaecrista, L.). An annual 

 herb with simply and abruptly pinnate leaves ; spreading 

 stems; leaflets ten to fifteen pairs, linear-oblong 1 ; flowers 

 large, yellow, often with a purple spot at the base; 

 anthers ten, unequal ; style slender. Sandy fields, com- 

 mon in the Mississippi Valley and south to Texas. 



C. nictitans is like the above, but smaller, the wild sen- 

 na (C. niarilandica), grows from three to four feet high ; 

 has deciduous stipules ; large leaflets ; petiole with a large 

 club-shaped gland near the base. Plant perennial. Com- 

 mon from southern Iowa to Illinois, southeast Nebraska 

 and southward to Texas. 



C. Tor a is an annual; leaflets three, or (rarely) two 

 pairs, obovate, obtuse, with an elongated gland ; pods 

 slender, curved. Common southward. 



C. occidentalis, L. is an annual with four to six pairs of 

 ovate-lanceolate leaflets ; pods long, linear. Common 

 southward to Texas and Arkansas. 



Rattle Box (Crotalaria sagittalis, L.). A hairy annual 

 from three inches to one foot high, and having a small 

 tap-root; stem villous and wing-margined; leaves, oval or 

 oblong-lanceolate, from one-third to one-half inch wide, 

 the edge of the leaf being hairy and entire, or somewhat 

 wavy; stipules united and lying back on the stem, becom- 

 ing inversely arrow-shaped ; each peduncle produces a 

 few yellow flowers about one-fourth inch in diameter; 

 calyx five-cleft ; standard of the corolla large and heart- 

 shaped, keel scythe shaped ; stamens monadelphous, the 

 anthers of two sizes, five being smaller than the other; 

 the large, inflated pod bears, at first, some resemblance 

 to the garden pea, being greenish in color, but later turns 

 dark and varies in size from three-fourths to one inch in 

 diameter; seeds ver v small and when mature, breaking 



