COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 529 



Range : Ontario and Massachusetts to southern New Jersey ; also 



on the Pacific Coast. An immigrant from Europe. 

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



Root very long, thick, and fleshy ; from its crown rise several 

 smooth, slender stems, one to two feet tall, usually branched but 

 sometimes simple, naked except for a 

 few scale-like bracts. Leaves all 

 basal, three to ten inches long, 

 spreading flat on the ground in a 

 large tuft or rosette; they are 

 broadly lance-shaped to obovate in 

 outline, deeply cut and lobed, with 

 terminal segment large and lateral 

 ones turned backward (runcinate), 

 covered on both sides with spread- 

 ing hairs. Heads about an inch 

 broad, yellow, with many slender 

 rays, toothed at their tips, which are 

 inclined to twist together as the 

 blossom withers and recloses. In- 

 volucre nearly cylindric, its bracts 

 imbricated in several series, smooth, 

 appressed, pointed, the outer rows 

 successively shorter. Achenes spin- 

 dle-shaped, ten-ribbed, rough, con- 

 tracting to a slender beak longer 

 than the body; pappus a row of 

 very plumose bristles. (Fig. 365.) 



Means of control Fl - 365 - Gosmore (Hypochcu- 



ris radicata). X . 



Where well established the Gos- 

 more is nearly as persistent as the Dandelion. In cultivated 

 ground the perennial roots are destroyed by the plow and 

 subsequent tillage of crops. Pigs are very fond of the long, 

 fleshy roots, and badly infested areas may be profitably 

 cleaned out by turning in a few of those animals. In lawns 

 the rosettes may be spudded off, the cut surfaces being treated 



2.M 



