CARYOPHYLLACEAE (PINK FAMILY) 



151 



the chemicals have leached away. Constant cutting of the green 

 tops will finally starve the rootstocks, if continued without cessa- 

 tion for two seasons. 



COW COCKLE 



Saponaria Vaccdria, L. 



Other English names : Cow-herb, Spring Cockle, Pink Cockle, China 



Cockle. 



Introduced. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom: June to July. 

 Seed-time: July to August. 

 Range: Ontario to British Columbia, southward to the Gulf of 



Mexico. Locally very abundant, especially in the wheat-growing 



parts of the West. 

 Habitat: Grain and alfalfa fields, waste places. 



An immigrant from Europe, where it is said to have been formerly 

 used as a forage plant, the specific name, Vaccaria, having been given 

 in allusion to its value as cow fodder. 

 But it is listed among the "Stock- 

 Poisoning Plants of Montana," in the 

 bulletin of that name published by the 

 United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture, and its seeds, like those of Corn 

 Cockle, contain a poisonous property 

 that makes flour unwholesome and dan- 

 gerous to use when by accident they 

 are ground with wheat. Grain contami- 

 nated with these seeds is sharply "cut" 

 in the market. (Fig. 102.) 



Stem one to three feet tall, erect, 

 slender, smooth, glaucous, round, and 

 swollen at the joints, many-branched. 

 Leaves long ovate, pointed, smooth 

 and glaucous, opposite and clasping the 

 stem, the pairs sometimes united at 

 base. Flowers in loose corymbose clus- 

 ters, on rather long, w r iry pedicels ; calyx 

 a swelling, five-ribbed vase in two shades 

 of green, the ribs darker and so promi- 



FIG. 102. Cow Cockle 

 (Saponaria Vaccaria). X i. 



