LEGUMINOSAE (PULSE FAMILY) 



251 



Seed-time: August to October. 



Range: Locally established in Vermont and Ontario. 



Habitat: Fields, meadows, and waste places. 



This plant bears numerous flowers of charming color and fra- 

 grance, and these pleasant traits may blind many eyes to other quali- 

 ties that fit it to become a very noxious 

 weed. The tough, slender rootstocks 

 bear many small tubers from which new 

 plants are produced, and the plant also 

 fruits abundantly above ground. It 

 grows in dense mats, smothering all other 

 plants that grow with it. Ordinary cul- 

 tivation only serves to spread it by 

 breaking the rootstocks and scattering 

 the tubers. 



Stems smooth, very slender, one to 

 three feet long, with thin leaves and 

 stipules ; each pinnate leaf has but two 

 oblong leaflets a little more than an 

 inch long ; petioles, slim and wiry, the 

 tendrils hair-like and usually not branched. 

 Racemes on very slender axillary pedun- 

 cles, three- to six-flowered. Blossoms 

 fragrant, not quite an inch long, with 

 erect standard and obliquely spread 

 rosy pink or ^reddish purple wings. 

 Pods smooth, with globular, dark seeds, 

 which, as forage, are dangerously un- 

 wholesome. (Fig. 178.) 



aus). x J. 



Means of control 



Prevent seeding and check the growth of rootstocks by close and 

 persistent cutting throughout the growing season ; then plow late 

 in the fall, and in the next spring put the ground to a well-tilled 

 hoed-crop, permitting no leaf-growth to the weed. A second sea- 

 son of such root-starvation may be required, but increased returns 

 from the crops repay the expense of extra tillage. 



