BUBIAGEAE (MADDER FAMILY) 



spatulate, bristle-pointed, the margins and midribs also bristly 

 with short, stiff hairs. Flowers similar to the preceding species in 

 structure, white, minute but very numerous, in open cymose clusters 

 at the ends of the many branches and in the upper axils. The twin 

 fruits are smooth. 



Means of control 



Hand-pull the vines when in first bloom. If the patches are not 

 too numerous, it will pay to grub out the roots and save further 

 trouble. 



SMOOTH BUTTONWEED 

 Spermacoce gldbra, Miehx. 



Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom : June to September. 

 Seed-time: August to October. 

 Range : Ohio to Illinois, southward to Florida, 



Arkansas, and Texas. 

 Habitat: Wet meadows, banks of streams, 



and ditches. 



Stem ten to twenty inches tall, rather 

 stout, smooth, four-sided, sometimes simple 

 and erect or often diffusely branched, the 

 branches spreading, the lower ones decum- 

 bent. Leaves one to three inches long, 

 opposite, their bases connected by bristly, 

 membranous stipules, entire, elliptic, pointed 

 at each end, with smooth surface but rough 



edges. Flowers in dense terminal and axil- FIG. 278. Smooth 

 lary whorled clusters, the corollas funnel- Buttonweed (Sperma- 

 , . , . coce glabra). X \. 



form, four-lobed, white, less than a quarter- 

 inch long; stamens four, inserted on the tube; style two-cleft; 

 calyx also four-lobed, its acute teeth persistently crowning the 

 fruit, which is two-celled; when ripe the carpels separate, one 

 carrying with it the partition, leaving the other bare on the inner 

 face. Seeds small, hard, black, oblong to wedge-shaped, rounded 

 on the back, with flat inner face ; too often an impurity of southern 

 grass and clover seed. (Fig. 278.) 



