COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 



547 



Seed-time: July to September. 



Range : Wisconsin to the Plains of the Saskatchewan, southward to 



Missouri and New Mexico. 

 Habitat : Prairies ; dry fields and meadows. 



A troublesome, persistent weed, difficult to suppress, which is 

 appearing locally in some of the Eastern States, traveling by 

 the agencies of grass seeds or baled hay. 

 Grazing animals reject it when growing 

 because of the copious, bitter, and milky 

 juice; and when dried in hay its stems 

 are too hard and woody to be eaten. 



It has a thick, deep-boring, woody root, 

 from which several tufted stems arise, 

 eight to eighteen inches high, erect, stiff, 

 branching, round, and finely grooved. 

 Lower leaves a half -inch to two inches in 

 length, narrowly lance-shaped to linear, 

 the upper ones becoming much smaller, 

 until near the top they are mere awl- 

 like scales. Heads erect, solitary and 

 terminal, about a half-inch broad, usually 

 five-flowered, the rays five-toothed at the 

 tips, rosy pink or light purple ; involucre 

 about a half-inch high, cylindric, with an 

 inner row of five to eight linear bracts, 

 scarious-margined, united at the base, and 

 surrounded by several very short outer 

 ones. Achenes very slender, nearly a 

 quarter-inch long, round, tapering, truncate 

 at summit, with a copious, light brown 

 pappus by which they are freely wind-distributed. 



FIG. 379. Rush-like 

 Lygodesmia (Lygodesmia 

 juncea) . X . 



(Fig. 379.) 



Means of control 



Prevent seed development and distribution by early and repeated 

 cutting. Infested grass lands should be harvested before the first 

 flowers mature, and should later be broken up for a cultivated 

 cleansing crop before reseeding. For newly infested areas the 



