SAURURACEAE (LIZARD-TAIL FAMILY) 85 



Means of control 



Put the land to a crop requiring hoe-cultivation ; the use of a 

 cultivator only serves to spread the pest by scattering the tubers. 

 Small thickets should be grubbed out, or the tops cut and the roots 

 treated with caustic soda or carbolic acid. 



YERBA MANSA 

 Anemdpsis calif ornica, Hook. 



Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds and by rootstocks. 



Time of bloom: May to September. 



Seed-time: June to October. 



Range : Southern California to Southern Utah, Arizona, and New 



Mexico. 

 Habitat : Moist, saline soil ; troublesome in cultivated crops. 



The most troublesome part of this plant is its thick, creeping 

 rootstock, which is very acrid, astringent, and strong-scented. 

 Stem scape-like, six inches to two feet tall, with a large, broadly 

 ovate or oblong, clasping leaf just 

 above the middle, in the axil of 

 which is a fascicle of one to three 

 much smaller petioled leaves ; root 

 leaves thick, oblong, with rounded 

 apex and heart-shaped base, usually 

 slightly broadened toward the tip, 

 entire, two to eight inches in 

 length, on petioles about as long as 

 the blades, dilated and sheathing 

 at base. Flowers very small, 

 densely crowded on a thickish 

 conical, terminal spike about an 

 inch long, at the base of which is 

 a persistent involucre of six or 

 eight oblong, showy, white bracts 

 about an inch in length, having the 

 appearance of petals and resembling 

 a large white anemone. The true FIG. 46. Yerba Mansa (Anemop- 

 flowers on the spike have no sis calif ornica). x J. 



