500 COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 



Means of control 



Only by breaking up the sod, and putting the ground under 

 thorough cultivation for a year or two, can it be cleansed of the 

 perennial roots and the dormant seeds of this obnoxious weed. 

 Waste-land plants, the wind-blown seeds of which may infest the 

 country side, should receive the attention of the whole community. 



COMMON SAGE-BUSH 



Artemisia tridentata, Nutt. 



Other English names : Sage-wood, Sage-brush, Mountain 



Sage. 



Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom: July to September. 

 Seed-time: August to November. 

 Range: Nebraska to Colorado, Utah, and California, 



northward to Montana and British Columbia. 

 Habitat: Dry plains and foothills. 



Drought does not seem to affect this plant, and 

 when settled among less sturdy growths it robs them of 

 most of the food and moisture available. 



Stems shrubby and branching, one to ten feet tall, 

 covered with silvery gray hair. Leaves a half-inch to 

 but little more than an inch long, narrow, wedge- 

 shaped, sessile, with three to five blunt teeth at the 

 tip, which is the broadest part. Flowers sessile on 

 crowded spikes in .the axils and at the ends of the 

 branches, the terminal spikes often dividing into large 

 panicles. Heads only about an eighth of an inch in 

 diameter, the florets all perfect and fertile. When ripe 

 the heads fall entire from the spikes and are blown 

 far and wide, particularly in winter over crusted snows, 

 infesting many a home pasture and meadow with their 

 perennial roots and uneatable, bitter foliage, necessitat- 

 347 G _ * n S ^e breaking-up and cultivation of the ground in 

 Common order to rid it of their presence. It should interest an 

 Sage-bush entire community to see that waste-land plants are 

 t tientatcti destroyed or at least prevented from developing seed, 

 xi. ' (Fig. 347.) 



