164 



THE INDIANA WEED BOOK. 



globose, its bracts glabrous, very numerous and tapering to long stiff 

 points which become rigid and hooked at tip to form a bur, the inner 

 ones erect and shorter than the flowers ; receptacle flat, densely bristly ; 

 flowers purplish, all tubular. Achenes light brown, oblong, ribbed or 

 3-augled; pappus of short bristly scales. (Figs. 1, d ; 124.) 



Very common about the sites of old houses, barnyards, fence 

 corners and waste places generally. July-Oct. A coarse, un- 

 sightly, ill-smelling social weed which 

 has followed man over much of the 

 continent, yet whose presence on any 

 farm betokens a negligent and slov- 

 enly owner. Tt produces the first year 

 of its growth only a rosette of largo 

 root leaves resembling those of the 

 common "pie-plant," from the midst 

 of which the flower-stalk of the next 

 season springs. When ripe the whole 

 flower head separates as a bur, which 

 is very annoying in the wool of sheep 

 and the manes of horses, and sticks 

 closer than a brother to the clothes of 



Fig. 124. (After Clark.) 



man. These burs are almost ideal for 



seed distribution, the seed being widely scattered as the bur is 

 carried along. Remedies: deep cutting below the crown with hoe 

 or spud before flowering; burning the mature plants; repeated 

 mowing. 



The seeds are very numerous, a large plant producing 400,000 

 or more, and when dried both they and the roots are used in blood 

 and skin diseases and the fresh leaves as poultices for swellings and 

 ulcers. The tap-root of burdock is large, fleshy, a foot or more long, 

 and is sold under the name of lappa, the price ranging from 3 to 

 8 cents per pound. Tt should be collected in the fall of the first 

 year, washed, split lengthwise and carefully dried. The seeds, if 

 gathered when ripe or nearly so, have a value of 5 to 10 cents a 

 pound. 



1.32. CARDUUS LANCEOIATUS L. Common Thistle. Bull Thistle. (B. I. 1.) 

 Stem stout, branched, leafy to the heads, more or less woolly, 2-4 

 feet higu ; leaves dark green, lanceolate, pointed, deeply cut-lobed, the 

 lobes and teeth tipped with stout prickles, the base and margins, which 

 extend downward along the stem, bristly. Heads mostly solitary at the 

 ends of the branches, about 2 inches long and when fully open almost as 

 broad; bracts of the involucre in many overlapping rows, lanceolate, 

 pointed, tipped with slender erect prickles; flowers dark purple. Achenes 



