GRAMINEAE (GRASS FAMILY) 21 



the same perennial, creeping, jointed, and branching rootstocks, 

 spring the green, plume-like, sterile stems known as Horse- 

 tails (Fig. 3). These are eight inches to more than a foot 

 tall, also hollow and jointed, but having whorls of simple rough 

 branches issuing from the base of each sheath ; the branches are 

 usually four-angled, but sometimes have only three sides, and are 

 jointed but not hollow. These green Horsetails are the food-as- 

 similating, starch-making parts of the plant and keep busy all 

 summer, storing the creeping rootstocks with nutriment for the 

 next year's fruiting stems. 



The Horsetail is poisonous most dangerously, sometimes 

 fatally, so to horses, and in a much less degree to sheep, causing in 

 the flocks merely a thin, unthrifty appearance and lack of good 

 condition. Strangely enough, neat cattle seem to be able to digest 

 the weed without injury. The state of Vermont, where horse- 

 raising is so great an industry, credits to this plant a loss of some 

 thousands of dollars annually. 



Means of control 



Drain, fertilize, and cultivate the ground. The plant thrives 

 best in sandy or gravelly soil that is moist during the early part of 

 the season, or where the soil water approaches near the surface.* 

 Drainage, and two or three seasons of good, thorough tillage, will 

 drive it out ; for, though the rootstocks are deeper in the ground 

 than ordinary cultivation penetrates, yet they will starve and die if 

 kept deprived of the green, food-assimilating, sterile stems. Plants 

 of waste places should receive attention, to the destruction of 

 both fertile and sterile shoots, as the wind-carried spores may 

 start new infestations. 



VIRGINIA BEARD-GRASS 



Andropogon virglnicus, L. 



Other English names: Broom Sedge. Sedge-grass. 



Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom : July to September. 



Seed-time: Late August to October. 



Range: Massachusetts to Illinois and southward to Florida and 



Texas. Most abundant and troublesome in the South. 

 Habitat: Meadows, pastures; grain, corn, and cotton fields. 



