CAPPARIDACEAE (CAPER FAMILY) 



199 



An unpleasant weed, with fetid odor and 

 acrid juices, the whole plant glandular and 

 clammy-hairy, even to its pods. Stem six 

 inches to two feet tall, with slender as- 

 cending branches. Leaves alternate, dark 

 green, with three oblong leaflets, tapering 

 to each end, on slender petioles about as 

 long as the central blade. Flowers in the 

 upper axils, forming long, leafy, terminal 

 racemes ; corolla of four yellowish white or 

 pinkish petals, notched at the outer edge, 

 with a tassel of many unequal pinkish 

 purple stamens in the center : four purplish 

 pointed sepals, soon falling away. Capsule 

 one to nearly two inches long, erect on 

 spreading pedicels, one-celled, thin, rough, 

 net-veined, crammed with rough, brown 

 seeds. (Fig. 141.) 



Means of control 



Close cutting or pulling before the formation of seed. 



FIG. 141. Clammy- 

 weed (Polanisia graveo- 

 lans). Xi 



PINK CLEOME 



Cledme serruldta, Pursh. 



Other English names: Rocky Mountain Bee-plant, Stinking Clover, 



Stinkweed. 



Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom : July to September. 

 Seed-time: Late August to November. 

 Range: Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri, westward to the Rocky 



Mountains, New Mexico, and Arizona ; also in Manitoba and 



the Northwest Territory. 

 Habitat : Dry upland prairies and hillsides, waste places. 



The foliage of this plant has a very unpleasant odor, which causes 

 it to be rejected by grazing cattle; but the blossoms yield much 

 nectar, which the bees turn into clear honey of fine flavor ; there- 

 fore bee keepers are its friends, for it blooms at a time when bee- 

 pasture is not so very plentiful. 



