COMPOSITE FAMILY 



COMPOSITAE 



COMMON YARROW. MILFOIL 



Achillea Millefolium L. 



Bruise or crush a leaf of this plant and smell it. The pleasant 

 odor is very characteristic and capable of identifying the plant. 

 The taste of it is bitter, and though cattle avoid the Common 



Yarrow when green, they 

 may eat it in dry fodder 

 and so spoil the milk. 

 Whether another of its 

 names, Nosebleed Weed, 

 is a true indicator or not, 

 the plant is still sold for 

 medicinal purposes. 



The Milfoil is common 

 in dry soil in open places 

 throughout eastern North 

 America. By means of 

 horizontal rootstocks it is 

 a hardy perennial weed, 

 especially in pastures. 



The nearly smooth 

 flowering stem grows i-2 

 feet high. The basal leav^es 

 and those on the numer- 

 ous short flowerless shoots 

 are mostly petioled and 

 sometimes lo inches long, 

 whereas those on the 

 flowering stem are smaller 

 and sessile. All are finely 

 divided into many narrow 

 segments. 

 The heads, about one-quarter inch broad and blooming from 

 June to November, are numerous in a nearly flat-topped in- 

 florescence. The involucre is composed of small oblong bracts 

 which are somewhat hairy. The 4-10 ray flowers are usually 

 white but occasionally pink or purple. The disk flowers are yellow, 

 their tubular corollas 5-lobed. Both kinds of flowers produce the 

 oblong and only slightly flattened akenes having no pappus. 



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