158 



EANUNCULACEAE (CROWFOOT FAMILY) 



Range: Throughout the United States and southern Canada, but 



most' abundant in the eastern part. 

 Habitat: Meadows, pastures, roadsides, and waste places. 



The range of this weed has of late years greatly increased, mostly 

 by the agency of baled hay. It is one of the most acrid of its tribe, 

 the juices causing blisters when applied to the skin, and cattle can- 

 not eat it in the green state; but drying seems to deprive it of 

 this dangerous quality, and therefore less 

 strenuous endeavor is made for its extermi- 

 nation than is deserved by so noxious a 

 weed. 



The bulbous base of this plant is well 

 fringed with long, fibrous, feeding roots. 

 Several stems usually grow from the same 

 root-tuft, six to eighteen inches high, erect, 

 slender, more or less branched, grooved and 

 hairy. Lower leaves long-petioled, three- 

 parted, with the segments again usually 

 three-cleft, sharply toothed, the terminal 

 segment having a somewhat lengthened 

 stalk. Stem-leaves much smaller, less di- 

 vided and sessile. Flowers bright yellow, 

 so lustrous that they reflect light, about 

 an inch broad, the petals much longer than 

 the hairy, reflexed sepals ; the blossoms 

 are often partly double, the peduncles slen- 

 der and grooved. Head globose, contain- 

 ing many small flattened, short-beaked carpels, so nearly of 

 the size and weight of grass seeds that they are very difficult of 

 separation. (Fig. 108.) 



Means of control 



Hand-digging will pay if the infestation is new and the plants 

 not so numerous as to make the task impracticable ; but it is worth 

 considerable trouble to save a plot from being fouled by the seeds. 

 Ground too rankly infested to be so cleansed should be broken up, 

 put to cultivated crops, and be given thorough tillage for one or 

 two seasons. 



FIG. 108. Bulbous 

 Buttercup (Ranunculus 

 bulbosus). Xi- 



