446 COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 



rounded by leafy, white-woolly bracts. Involucral scales oblong, 

 the outer ones bluntly rounded and woolly, the inner rows acute, 

 dry and scarious, yellowish white. Its very low, spreading habit 

 of growth and dense white-woolliness would make it a pretty 

 border plant in the flower garden if its ambitions in regard to 

 bloom and fruitage were kept nipped in the bud. 



Means of control 



Hoe-cutting or hand-pulling while in early bloom, making cer- 

 tain that no seed has developed. 



ELECAMPANE 

 Inula Helenium, L. 



Other English names : Horseheal, Horse Elder, Seabwort, Elf Dock, 

 Velvet Dock, Yellow Starwort. 



Introduced. Perennial. Prop- 

 agates by seeds. 



Time of bloom: July to Sep- 

 tember. 



Seed-time: August to October. 



Range: Nova Scotia to Minne- 

 sota, southward to North 

 Carolina and Missouri. 



Habitat: Old fields, pastures, 

 roadsides, barnyards, and 

 waste places. 



In former days a small patch 

 of this plant was often kept by 

 country people for the relief of 

 asthmatic horses, "to help the 

 heaves" the thick, fleshy, mu- 

 cilaginous, yellow taproot being 

 the part used; it is still valued 

 medicinally and collectors receive 

 three to five cents a pound for it, 

 collected in the autumn of the 



FIQ. 311. -Elecampane (Inula Hd- second V f g rowth ' sliced > 

 enium). x I and dried. 



