WEEDS OF THE MILKWEED FAMILY. 



107 



Fig. 72. (After Vasey.) 



70. ASCLEPIAS SYRIACA L. Common Milkweed. Silkweed. Wild Cotton. 



(P. N. 2.) 



Stein stout, soft-downy, usually simple, 3-5 feet high ; leaves opposite, 

 . oblong or oval, short-stalked, densely hairy beneath, 4-9 inches long, 2-1 



inches wide. Flowers dull purple, the hoods 

 short, obtuse with a tooth each side of the short 

 horn. Pods robust, 3-5 inches long, the outside 

 woolly and bearing numerous short soft tufts 

 or warts. Seeds brown, flat, \ inch long, with 

 an abundance of silky hairs. (Fig. 72.) 



Common along roadsides, fence-rows 

 and in blue-grass pastures. June-Aug. 

 The milky juice is very plentiful, exuding 

 whenever the leaves or stems are bruised, 

 and is used by children as a remedy for 

 warts. The root is used in medicine and 

 when properly dried brings about 4 cents 

 per pound. Where once started in a pas- 

 ture the deep running rootstocks spread 

 rapidly and send up numerous stems so 



that the area affected becomes much larger year by year. Rem- 

 edies : repeated mowing or grubbing while in blossom ; in cultivated 

 lands, thorough hoeing and heavy cropping. 



THE MORNING-GLORY FAMILY .--CONVOLVULAOEJE. 



Mostly twining, climbing or trailing herbs with alternate leaves 

 and regular solitary or clustered axillary flowers. Sepals 5 ; petals 

 5, twisted in the bud, usually united their full length to form a 

 large bell-shaped or funnel-form corolla (Fig. 10, /.) : stamens 5, 

 inserted low down on the tube of the corolla; ovary above-and not 

 united with the calyx, 2 4-celled with a pair of ovules in each cell. 

 Fruit a 2-4-valved capsule. 



A large family most abundant in the tropics, many of which 

 are with us cultivated for ornament and one, the sweet potato, for 

 its edible roots. Nine species, known as morning-glories and bind- 

 weeds, grow wild in the State, three at least of which are trouble- 

 some weeds. The glory of these wild morning-glories, how it en- 

 trances us! 'Tis a flower whose beauty is without a peer. The 

 eye of each bloom is set deep within the tube of the corolla and 

 beams out at us with an expression of most tender good will if we 

 but deign to give it passing notice. They are goddesses of the night 

 and early morn born in the former reigning in the latter and 

 closing forever their evanescent eyes before the fiercer beams of the 



