152 PORTULACACEAE (PURSLANE FAMILY) 



nent as to be angled wings ; the five petals pink, veined with deeper 

 pink, notched at the outer edge ; stamens ten ; styles two. Cap- 

 sule ovoid, four-toothed, imperfectly two- to four-celled, containing 

 twenty to thirty hard, nearly globular, black seeds, about a tenth 

 of an inch in diameter. These seeds retain their vitality for several 

 years when buried in the soil. 



Means of control 



Sow clean seed. A Montana miller stated that the quantity of 

 Cow Cockle seed cleansed yearly from the wheat brought to his 

 mill, and supposed to be already clean, was about a ton. Seed 

 should be made as clean to sow in one's fields as to be eaten in bread. 

 Raking the grain fields with a weeding harrow when the crop is but 

 a few inches high will kill very many of the Cockle seedlings ; those 

 not killed by the harrow should be hand-pulled at the time of their 

 earliest bloom, when they show very conspicuously among the grain. 

 The process is a paying one, even though the weeds are so many as 

 to make the task somewhat strenuous, for the food and moisture 

 used in their development is stolen from the rightful crop, which is 

 the poorer for it. Stubbles where the weed has matured seed 

 should be burned over and the ground used for a cultivated crop 

 before being again seeded to grain. 



PURSLANE 

 Portuldca oleracea, L. 



' Other English names: Pussley, Wild Portulaea, Duckweed. 

 Introduced. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom: Late June until cut off by frost. 

 Seed-time: July until killed by frost. 



Range: Throughout North America except the northern part. 

 Habitat: Cultivated ground, waste places. 



The noted experiments with buried seeds, conducted by W. J. 

 Beal, Botanist of the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 demonstrated that the seeds of Purslane will germinate after having 

 lain dormant in the soil for thirty years. Few gardens are without 

 the weed. It is said to harbor both the melon plant louse and 



