544 



COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 



Stem rather stout, smooth, two to six 

 feet high, leafy to the flowering panicle. 

 Leaves oblong-lance-shaped, smooth, some- 

 what thick, entire or the lower ones with 

 a few shallow teeth, sometimes spinulose 

 on the margins, those of the stem sessile, 

 clasping, and auricled at base. Heads in 

 a long, loosely branched, terminal panicle 

 and in smaller axillary clusters ; each about 

 a quarter-inch broad, on slender pedicels, 

 the rays reddish yellow; involucre cylin- 

 dric, the outer bracts much shorter than 

 the inner ones. Achenes oblong, flat- 

 tened, shorter than the slender beak. 

 Pappus fine and white. (Fig. 377.) 



Means of control the same as for Prickly 

 Lettuce. 



BLUE LETTUCE 

 Lactuca pulchella; DC. 



Other English names: Showy Lettuce, 



Large-flowered Blue Lettuce. 

 Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds 



and by rootstocks. 

 Time of bloom : June to August. 

 Seed-time: July to September. 

 Range: Western Ontario to the North- 

 west Territory and British Columbia, southward to Michigan, 

 Kansas, New Mexico, and California. 

 Habitat : All crops ; most injurious in grain fields and meadows. 



FIG. 377. Arrow- 

 leaved Wild Lettuce (Lac- 

 tuca sagi Uifolia) . X }. 



A very handsome plant, but one of the most obnoxious weeds of 

 its family and very hard to suppress. Stem slender, round, smooth, 

 two to three feet tall. Leaves exceedingly variable, oblong to 

 lance-shaped in outline, but the lower ones deeply cut or pinnatifid, 

 with segments turned backward and often having margined 

 petioles ; upper ones sessile and partly clasping, slightly toothed or 

 entire, becoming linear near the top ; all smooth and glaucous. 

 The whole plant, even to its fleshy, light-colored rootstocks, is 



