COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 



477 



SPANISH NEEDLES 

 Bldens bipinndta, L. 



Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom: July to October. 



Seed-time: August to November. 



Range: Rhode Island to Nebraska and Arizona, southward 



Florida and Mexico. Also in Europe and Asia. 

 Habitat: Gardens, fields, roadsides, and waste places. 



to 



Satisfied if the soil is only moderately moist, this weed often 

 makes itself troublesome in fields of Indian corn and other cultivated 

 crops, maturing seeds after the horse- 

 hoe culture has ceased. Stems slender 

 with many spreading branches, one to 

 five feet tall, erect, smooth, and four- 

 sided. Leaves pinnately twice or thrice 

 divided, the segments broadly lance- 

 shaped, deeply cut and toothed, op- 

 posite or the uppermost sometimes al- 

 ternate; petioles slender and grooved. 

 Heads usually numerous, on long, ridged, 

 and angular peduncles; outer bracts 

 of the involucre linear, shorter than 

 the inner ones which are broader and 

 acutely pointed ; rays small and few, 

 pale yellow with dark veins ; disk-florets 

 yellow and five-lobed. Achenes brown, 

 nearly three-fourths of an inch long, 

 slim, spindle-shaped, four-angled, usu- 

 ally tipped with four rather short, awl- 

 like, diverging awns, barbed downward. 



(Fig. 331.) 



FIG. 331. Spanish Needles 



(Bidens bipinnata). X J. 

 Means of control 



Prevent seed production, continuing the tillage of cultivated 

 crops late or hand-pulling the late-flowering remnant of the weed 

 growth. All waste-land plants should be cut several times during 

 the growing season. 



