iSS MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



the first to bloom, making the infloresence indeterminate and 

 paniculate. On the smaller flower shoots of the larger plants, 

 on the smaller flower clusters that come out lower, on plants 

 that branch, and on small plants with few heads; the terminal 

 head opens first making the infloresence determinate and 

 cymose. Dr. Gray says the infloresence is open cymose, prob- 

 ably determined from a small plant with few heads. 



Mr. Ward says paniculate, probably from the examination of 

 larger plants with many heads. Flower clusters terminal, and 

 if branched, terminal on the branches, composed of from 4 to 

 2~ heads, each about one-half inch long. Flowers 50 or more 

 in each head. Yellow corollas strap-shaped and extending 

 beyond the involucre about its length. Involucre green, one- 

 fourth inch long, composed of many narrow, pointed, hairy 

 scales in a single row. Achenes 2 mm. long, dark reddish- 

 brown, about ten-ribbed, oblong, truncate above and gradually 

 narrowing to the obtuse base. Slightly flattened below. 

 Pappus 4 mm. long, composed of a single series of delicate, 

 whitish bristles, which under high powers are plumose with 

 short hairs. 



HABITS. 



The plants grow in grass lands, cultivated fields and along 

 roadsides. The seeds germinate in the fall and the young seed- 

 lings live over winter and continue to live from year to year. 

 The plants increase by stolons and rootstocks. Flowering 

 stems are put up early in the summer and the plants are in full 

 bloom and many of the heads fully ripe the last of June in 

 Maine. 



Mr. Dewey in Farmer's Bulletin No. 28, U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture, p. 25, gives the time of flowering in Xew York 

 as from Tune to September, and the time of seeding from 

 August to October. The plant is fully a month earlier in Maine 

 and becomes a nuisance, as its seeds are ripe before the grass 

 is ready to cut. Plants that were shedding seed from some of 

 the heads the last of June, bore small buds just forming, making 

 the period of seed maturation quite long. 



Many plants are tardy in putting up flower stems, so that 

 flowering continues all summer. Plants cut off by mowing the 

 grass put out full flowering stems that mature seed before frost. 



