PURSLANE FAMILY 



PORTULACACEAE 



COMMON PURSLANE 



Portidaca oleracea L. 



This naturalized European plant is found in fields and 

 waste places nearly throughout the continent except in the far 

 north. It is a useful salad plant and is relished also by sheep and 

 pigs, rabbits, squirrels and woodchucks. It is 

 sometimes called Pussley and in some locali- 

 ties where it is a weed 

 the expression has 

 arisen, "Meaner than 

 Pussley." 



The Purslane does 

 not grow upright but 

 spreads over the soil, 

 freely branching from 

 a deep central root. As 

 an annual it is easily 

 destroyed by cultiva- 

 tion, but it produces 

 immense quantities of seed and on this account, 

 plus its high resistance to drouth, is very per- 

 sistent. If pulled up the plant wilts slowly; and 

 if some of its roots are covered with soil before it 

 is completely wilted, it will start growing again. 

 The yellow flowers, produced all summer, are small but quite 

 pretty, and they open in sunshine for only a few hours in the 

 morning. There are only 2 sepals, grown together at the base and 

 partly attached to the ovary. The 5 yellow petals and 7 or more 

 stamens are attached to the calyx and usually tall off shortly. 

 The style is deeply 4-6-cleft. The fruit is a capsule containing a 

 very large number of small seeds. 



The Prairie Talinum, Taliytiim teretifolium Pursh, and the Small- 

 flowered Talinum, T. rugospermum Holzinger, the 2 species of this 

 genus found in Illinois, grow together in sandy, gravelly or rocky 

 barrens and are so much alike as to require close inspection tor iden- 

 tification. They are small, fleshy and smooth perennials with many 

 short, linear, cylindric leaves clustered at the base of the stem.^ 

 The rosy or pinkish flowers, in cymes on scapes, are about one-half 

 inch in diameter, with 5 petals and 2 sepals that soon drop off. The 

 pedicels are bracted. T. teretijolium is distinguished by its oblong 

 anthers and smooth seeds; T. rugospermum has spherical anthers 

 and roughened seeds. 



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