LEGUMINOSAE (PULSE FAMILY) 219 



depths through a mass of stringy feeding fibers, also black. With 

 such a food reserve, no wonder it is able to send up yearly such a 

 quantity of growth above ground ; for each plant is a collection of 

 many woody stalks, three to six feet tall, erect, slender, pale green, 

 round, smooth, or slightly grooved at base ; when young, both 

 stems and leaf-stalks may be slightly hairy. Leaves alternate and 

 set rather far apart, pinnately compound, with five to nine pairs of 

 smooth, oblong leaflets, dark green above and paler below, the 

 edges entire and the midvein extending beyond the rounded tip in a 

 bristly point ; petioles short, yellow, grooved on the upper side, and 

 having a prominent, club-shaped gland set just above the swollen 

 base. Flowers bright yellow, springing in many loose clusters 

 from the upper axils ; calyx-lobes five, very narrow and reflexed ; 

 five unequal petals, three close together at the top, the two below 

 larger and spreading; ten yellow stamens with filaments of dif- 

 fering lengths, tipped with brown anthers of differing sizes, the 

 three lowermost ones largest. Pods about three inches long, flat, 

 curved, slightly constricted between the seeds, hairy when young 

 but becoming smooth as they ripen, and turning to a dark reddish 

 brown. Seeds flat, dark brown, usually four to eight in a pod, 

 possessed of very long vitality when in the soil. A Wild Senna 

 plant in bloom has a look of elegance, as though it cared for its 

 own fine appearance. Grazing animals leave it undisturbed, or if 

 scarcity of forage drive them to browse its leaves they suffer from 

 "scours" as it has a strong cathartic action. It is one of the 

 medicinal plants, and its leaflets, stripped from their stalks at 

 . flowering time and carefully dried, may be sold in the drug market 

 for six to eight cents a pound. 



Means of control 



If the plants are few they may be grubbed out, but if plentiful 

 this would be a task for Hercules. Cutting close to the ground at 

 the time of bloom, repeating the operation as the roots send up more 

 stalks, will finally exhaust their vitality ; but the treatment must be 

 so persistent as to allow no opportunity for storing fresh nutriment. 

 Dry salt on the cut surfaces will help to check new growth ; or the 

 plants may be wholly and promptly destroyed by the use of 

 caustic soda or hot brine about the roots, leaving the ground 

 barren for a season. 



