134 ILLECEBRACEAE (KNOTWORT FAMILY) 



Leaves awl-shaped, opposite, with joined bases, and about a 

 half-inch long. In their axils and at the ends of the stems 

 are clustered the numerous minute greenish flowers ; these 

 have no petals, but have five or ten stamens, two distinct styles 

 and a deeply cut five-lobed calyx (occasionally four-lobed) with 

 a hardened, cup-like tube w r hich later encloses and persistently 

 holds the solitary seed. These hard seed-coverings with their 

 points broken off are sometimes an impurity of grass and clover 

 seeds. (Fig. 86.) 



Means of control 



Autumn plants should be destroyed by surface cultivation in 

 early spring. Where such tillage is practicable, persistent hoe- 

 cutting during the growing season will suppress the weed. In 

 lawns a few drops of carbolic acid, squirted on the crowns with 

 a machine oil-can, destroys the plants with less defacement of the 

 sward than the hoe would make. 



FORKED CHICKWEED 



Anychia polygonoides, Raf. 



Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom: June to September. 



Seed-time: July to October. 



Range: Maine to Minnesota and southward to Florida, Alabama, 



and Arkansas. 

 Habitat: Gardens, lawns, fields, roadsides. 



A low, widely spreading, nearly prostrate weed, the stems three 

 to ten inches long, branching by many forkings ; the whole plant 

 finely hairy, at least when young. Leaves many and crowded, a 

 quarter-inch to a half-inch long, narrowly lance-shape, sessile or 

 tapering to very short petioles. Flowers greenish and so minute 

 as to be hardly noticeable, sitting sessile in the forks in small 

 clusters ; they are without petals, but have a five-parted calyx, two 

 stigmas, and two or three, occasionally five, stamens. Each blos- 

 som produces but one seed, the small, plump, globose utricle pro- 

 truding beyond the 'calyx-lobes. 



