Yellow and Orange 



it blooms in fields and along roadsides, its brownish seed-plumes 

 rapidly following ; but these are produced at the frightfully extrava- 

 gant cost of over two hundred thousand grains of pollen to each 

 head, it is estimated. The Greek generic name, meaning lion's 

 tooth, refers to the shape of the lobes of the narrowly oblong leaves 

 in a tuft at the base. Range, from New Jersey and Ohio far 

 northward. Naturalized from Europe and Asia. 



Field Sow-thistle; Milk Thistle 



(Sonchus arvensis) Chicory family 



Flower-heads Bright yellow, very showy, I to 2 in. across, 

 several or numerous, on rough peduncles in a spreading 

 cluster. Involucre nearly i in. high; the scales narrow, 

 rough. Stem: 2 to 4 ft. high, leafy below, naked, and panicu- 

 lately branched above, from deep roots and creeping root- 

 stocks. Leaves: Long, narrow, spiny, but not sharp-toothed; 

 deeply cut, mostly clasping at base. 



Preferred Habitat Meadows, fields, roadsides, salt-water marshes. 



Flowering Season July October. 



Distribution Newfoundland to Minnesota and Utah, south to New 

 Jersey. 



It cannot be long, at their present rate of increase, before this 

 and its sister immigrant become very common weeds throughout 

 our entire area, as they are in Europe and Asia. 



The Annual Sow-thistle, or Hare's Lettuce (S. oleraceus), its 

 smaller, pale yellow flower-heads, with smooth involucres more 

 closely grouped, now occupies our fields and waste places with 

 the assurance of a native. Honey-bees chiefly, but many other 

 bees, wasps, brilliant little flower-flies (Syrphidae), and butter- 

 flies among other winged visitors which alight on the flowers, 

 from May to November, are responsible for the copious, soft, fine, 

 white-plumed seeds that the winds waft away to fresh colonizing 

 ground. The leaves clasp the stem by deep ear-like or arrow- 

 shaped lobes, or the large lower ones are on petioles, lyrate-pin- 

 natifid, the terminal division commonly large and triangular; the 

 margins all toothed. Frugal European peasants use them as a pot- 

 herb or salad. One of the plant's common folk-names in the Old 

 World is hare's palace. According to the "Crete Herbale," if 

 "the hare come under it, he is sure no beast can touch hym." 

 That was the spot Brer Rabbit was looking for when Brer Fox 

 lay low! Another early writer declares that "when hares are 

 overcome with heat they eat of an herb called hare's-lettuce, 

 hare's-house, hare's-palace; and there is no disease in this beast 

 the cure whereof she does not seek for in this herb." Who has 

 detected our cotton-tails nibbling the succulent leaves ? 



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