Description of False Flax. 167 



very numerous, are easily shed, hence when 

 the ripe plants are disturbed by the jar of 

 the machines used in cutting the crops amid 

 which they grow, many of their seeds are 

 shed upon the ground. The seeds of false 

 flax have some resemblance to the seeds of 

 common flax, but they are much smaller. 



False flax is a weed that will grow in any 

 kind of soil adapted to winter wheat or 

 meadow, hence it will flourish on a wide 

 range of soils. It seems equally at home in 

 the stiffest clays and in the mild, humous 

 loams of the prairie. False flax peculiarly 

 infests winter wheat, rye, meadows and 

 pastures. It does not usually grow to any 

 considerable extent in spring crops, but 

 sometimes stray plants will be found in 

 these crops. These stray plants, however, 

 usually have sprung up in the preceding 

 fall, and have survived the cultivation 

 involved in preparing the ground for being 

 sown in the spring. 



This plant is distributed by means of the 

 seeds of the crops amid which it grows, 

 by farmyard manure, and by droppings of 

 cattle, but it is more widely distributed by 

 being carried in the seed of timothy than 

 in any other way. In this fact we find a 



