COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 



483 



toothed at tips, yellow, often shading 

 into brown at their bases, sometimes 

 entirely brown, occasionally lacking, 

 hence the name nudiflorum. Seeds 

 oblong, hairy, the pappus of five or 

 more awned scales. (Fig. 335.) 



Means of control the same as for the 

 autumn Sneeze weed. 



FINE-LEAVED SNEEZEWEED 



Helenium tenufdlium, Nutt. 



Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom : Early August to October. 



Seed-time: September to November. 



Range: Virginia to Kansas, southward 

 to Florida and Texas. 



Habitat : Prairies ; moist meadows, road- 

 sides, and waste places. 



This plant is rapidly extending its 

 range, being locally established as far 

 north as Massachusetts and Ohio ; it is 



considered quite as noxious as the larger, Sneezeweed (Helenium nudi- 

 perennial species, several cases having ^ orum -) x i- 

 been reported from the Gulf States where it has proved fatal to 

 grazing horses and mules. Neat cattle do not seem to be so 

 dangerously affected, but the weed is often the cause of bitter milk. 

 The bitter, acrid properties are not dissipated by drying and 

 therefore the young plants are very objectionable in meadows, 

 being harvested with the hay and sharply " cutting" its quality. 



Stem eight to twenty inches tall, slender, smooth, much branched 

 above, forming a bushy head. Leaves very numerous, smooth, 

 linear, almost thread-like, sessile, often fascicled. Heads many, 

 about an inch broad, with six to ten short, drooping, yellow rays, 

 fanshaped, toothed at the tips, pistillate and fertile ; disk yellow, 

 globose, the florets perfect and fertile ; bracts of the involucre 

 linear, soon reflexed. Achenes angled and hairy, with a pappus 

 of short, bristle-tipped scales. 



FIG. 335. Purple-headed 



