COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 499 



and thin; the leaves are thrice pinnatifid, the segments finely 

 divided and again cut and lobed ; lower ones with slender petioles, 

 but upper ones sessile or nearly so. Flowers in loose compound 

 racemes, often more than a foot in length, the branchlets exceed- 

 ingly slender and closely strung with nearly globular, nodding 

 heads less than a sixth of an inch in diameter. These small, 

 dried heads are called "seed," though of course they contain a 

 number of very small achenes. 



Means of control 



Prevent seed production by frequent close cutting during the 

 growing season ; if this is done, unless the ground is foul with 

 dormant seed, the weed will disappear. 



PASTURE SAGE 



Artemisia frigida, Willd. 



Other English names: Low Sage-bush, Wormwood Sage, Wild Sage. 



Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom : July to October. 



Seed-time: September to December. 



Range: Minnesota to the Saskatchewan and Idaho, southward to 



Texas and New Mexico. 

 Habitat: Grasslands. 



Closely grazed pastures are sometimes badly overgrown with 

 this weed, for cattle will not eat the bitter foliage and the plant is 

 left to reproduce itself. 



Stems tufted, ten to twenty inches tall, smooth, woody at the 

 base, the younger parts silky white with soft hair. Leaves also 

 densely silken-hairy, grayish green, a half-inch to nearly two 

 inches long, three- to five-parted, the segments very narrowly 

 linear ; lower leaves have slim petioles, often with a pair of entire 

 or three-cleft divisions near the base ; upper ones have fewer seg- 

 ments and are sessile. Heads very numerous in narrow terminal 

 panicles ; nearly hemispheric, about an eighth of an inch broad, 

 nodding on short pedicels ; involucral scales rounded oblong, silky- 

 hairy. Only the central florets of the heads are fertile. 



