94 WEEDS OF ESSEX COUNTY; 



thoroughly established that they grow equally well in a 

 variety of situations. Plants also take a variety of forms 

 from their situations and what they have to contend with 

 in their season's growth. 



The Roman wormwood (Ambrosia artemisicefolid) , 

 found growing in cultivated ground, is usually two or 

 three feet high, with a spread of two feet on the surface ; 

 while if grown in an old pasture where it is Jbrowsed on 

 by cattle it will be found to take a form of one or two 

 inches in height where it will thrive ; and as the law of 

 nature is for plants to mature seeds, one of these low, 

 dwarfed plants will produce as many seeds as the larger 

 plants grown in tilled ground. This often leads to the 

 question asked by cultivators who, after ploughing and 

 planting an old piece of pasture-land, find it thickly cov- 

 ered with the Roman wormwood, " Where do the seeds 

 come from ? " And as the full grown plant has not been 

 detected by the casual observer for a series of years pre- 

 vious to the fields being planted, the query is made as 

 to how long the seed has lain dormant in the soil. 



Again, seeds of such plants as the Canada thistle ( Cir- 

 sium awense) and the fire weed (Erechthites hieracifolia) 

 are furnished with a pappus of fine, soft hairs, which 

 makes them very buoyant and easily transported by the 

 wind to a great distance, and as such plants are very pro- 

 lific, each plant producing thousands of seeds, when they 

 do alight on cultivated or new burnt soil are immedi- 

 ately covered with the lighter material of which the soil is 

 composed, and are ready to form a crop for the next sea- 

 son. Probably two-thirds of the seeds are dropped on 

 grass lands and in woods where they never reach the soil, 

 otherwise the country would soon be covered with these 

 plants. I have arranged a classified list, with notes, of the 

 weedy plants of Essex County, as follows : 



