438 



COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 



WHITE-TOR 



Erigeron dnnuus, L. 



Tall Whiteweed, Daisy Fleabane, Sweet 

 Propagates by seeds. 



Other English names : 



Scabious. 



Native. Annual or winter annual. 

 Time of bloom: May to November. 

 Seed-time: June to December. 



Range : Nova Scotia to Alaska, southward to Georgia and Missouri. 

 Habitat: Fields, meadows, roadsides, waste places. 



A special pest of grass and clover fields, 

 the earlier flowers maturing and dropping 

 seeds into the soil before the accompanying 

 crop is ready to harvest, thus assuring a con- 

 tinuity of its unwelcome presence. Seed- 

 bearing plants are transported in baled hay 

 and the seeds are a common impurity of grass 

 seeds. 



Stem two to five feet tall, erect, stiff, some- 

 what ridged, sparsely covered with spreading 

 hairs, much branched at the top. Leaves 

 thin, coarsely and sharply toothed, the lower 

 ones long-ovate, tapering into margined peti- 

 oles, the upper ones lance-shaped, acute, 

 toothed only along the sides, sessile or with 

 very short petioles, those on the branches 

 still smaller and usually entire. Heads very 

 numerous, in many corymbose clusters, on 

 short pedicels, about a half-inch broad, the 

 many narrow rays white or faintly tinged 

 with purple ; bracts of the involucre bristly- 

 hairy and nearly linear. Achenes very small, 

 light-colored, flattened, slightly hairy. Pappus 

 double, the inner row of fine bristly hairs, the 

 outer row of short slender scales. (Fig. 304.) 



FIG. 304. White- 

 top (Erigeron an- 

 nuus). X . 



Means of control 



If the infestation is new and the weed not so abundant as to 

 make the task impracticable, it will pay to hand-pull and remove 



