COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 413 



both sides. Heads in large, rather 

 loose, terminal cymose clusters, deep 

 reddish purple; florets all perfect 

 and fertile with tubular, five-lobed 

 corollas ; stamens five, united in a 

 tube about the cleft-tipped style, a 

 characteristic of all composites ; in- 

 volucre top-shaped, purple-tinged, its 

 bracts imbricated in several series, 

 closely appressed. Achenes bristly 

 ribbed, with a double pappus, the 

 outer row of short, very stiff, scale- 

 like bristles, the inner row much 

 longer, of many fine, rough hairs. 

 (Fig. 288.) 



Means of control 



In cultivated crops the perennial 

 roots are destroyed by the plow and 

 the following tillage, but in land 

 where there is danger of washing, or 

 which for other reasons is not desired 

 to be put under cultivation, the 

 grubbing-hoe or the scythe must be FIG- 288. Tall Ironweed (Ver- 

 persistently used. Cut closely in 



May, repeating in June, and again in August and September, 

 thus preventing all seed development and exhausting the roots 

 of all sustenance supplied by the leaf-growth. 



WESTERN IRONWEED 

 Vernbnia fasciculata, Michx. 



Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom : July to September. 



Seed-time: September to November. 



Range: Ohio to South Dakota, southward to New Mexico and 



Texas. 

 Habitat: Prairies, hillsides, woodland borders, meadows, pastures, 



roadsides, and waste places. 



