96 



POLYGON ACE AE (BUCKWHEAT FAMILY) 



Rootstocks extensively creeping, branched, yellowish, tough 

 and fibrous, with tufts of feeding rootlets at intervals of a few 

 inches. Stems three inches to a 

 foot or a little more in height, 

 slender, erect or nearly so, usually 

 simple. Leaves halberd-shaped, 

 long-petioled, the basal auricles 

 spreading; stem leaves often with- 

 out auricles ; they are smooth, light 

 green, papillose, filled with an acid 

 juice which is rather pleasant to 

 taste but very unwholesome, as it is 

 an acid oxalate, which, veterinarians 

 say, is poisonous to horses and 

 sheep. Flowers dioecious, in erect, 

 interrupted, panicled racemes, the 

 staminate ones conspicuously yellow 

 because of the out-thrust, pollen- 

 loaded anthers, the fertile ones with 

 reddish calyx-lobes and feathery, 

 crimson stigmas. Achene three- 

 angled, brown, exceeding the calyx- 

 lobes. Sorrel seed is a frequent 

 impurity of commercial seeds, par- 

 ticularly of alsike clover, from which 

 it is especially difficult to separate. (Fig. 56.) 



Means of control 



Cultivate and enrich the ground, correcting its acid condition 

 with heavy applications of lime. Grain crops infested with Sorrel 

 are so robbed of moisture as to yield very poor returns ; they may 

 be helped by a spray of Iron sulfate applied just as the weed comes 

 into bloom ; the rootstocks take no harm, but much of the leaf sur- 

 face is destroyed and seed development prevented for that season. 

 Give surface cultivation, after harvest, exposing the fibrous root- 

 stocks and destroying the leaf-growth, and also stirring dormant 

 seeds into life. Reseed heavily, smothering the weed with strong 

 grasses or clover. 



FIG. 56. 



