240 LEGUMINOSAE (PULSE FAMILY) 



erect and some reclining on the ground for most of their length. 

 The whole plant is densely covered with long, white, silky hair. 

 Leaves alternate, odd pinnate, five to eight inches in length, com- 

 posed of seventeen to twenty-nine leaflets, pointed-ovate, and 

 about a half -inch long ; petioles slender, with membranous pointed- 

 ovate stipules united to their bases. The 

 peduncles spring from the lower axils and are 

 longer than the leaves, so that the short, 

 dense spike of deep purple or violet flowers 

 is held above them ; each flower is a little 

 more than a half-inch long, and has a tubular 

 calyx with five nearly equal teeth, an erect, 

 oblong standard, narrow wings, and a blunt 

 keel. Like the rest of the plant, the flower 

 is hairy; the pods, however, are smooth, 

 dry, leathery, about three-fourths of an inch 

 long, slightly incurved, grooved at the sutures, 

 two-celled, each cavity containing a number 

 of seeds, which have very long vitality when 

 in the soil. (Fig. 171.) 



Means of control 



During the years 1881 to 1885 the State of 

 Colorado paid a bounty of 21 dollars a ton, 

 dry, " for any Loco or poison weed dug up not 

 FIG. 171. Woolly less than three inches below the surface of 



moSus) U xT aZUS the ground> durin g the mon ths of May, June, 

 and July." After about two hundred thou- 

 sand dollars had been spent, the law was repealed. But the ex- 

 periment proved that if these plants are cut off at the root, well 

 below the crown, when they are in full bloom, they never sprout 

 again, but die. And a man with a sharp spade or a sharp and 

 heavy hoe can destroy the plants very rapidly, cleansing a large 

 extent of ground in a day. Dormant seeds may furnish another 

 crop ; but if successive germinations are cut off before developing 

 seed, the ground will be cleansed in the course of two or three 

 seasons at a much less expense than is now suffered in losses of 

 live-stock in a single year. 



