108 MAINE 8TATE COLLEGE 



shows that the phxnt docs not confine itself to roadsides and pas- 

 tures, where the grass is short, but encroaches into meadows and 

 overruns them. The plant being a perennial and developing run- 

 ners and root-stocks, makes it a very difficult weed to control. 

 Nothing short of destroying the roots will suffice. Besides, it is 

 so hardy and tenacious of life that it takes almost complete pos- 

 session of the soil. It is prolific of seeds, which are provided 

 with a row of bristles (pappus), giving it the power of wide dis- 

 semination liy the wind. We will be pleased to hear from anyone 

 who has noticed this weed and to learn how long it has been known 

 or anything regarding its introduction in the State. On the 

 opposite page we give a cut of this weed and below a descrip- 

 tion, both copied without change from the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, Report for 1890. They will enable anyone 

 to recognize this vile weed. 



"Perennial by slender root stocks and by runners; Stem sim- 

 ple, erect, one to one and one-half feet high, nearly leafless, 

 densely hirsute, the hairs toward the apex of the stem black at 

 the base ; leaves mostl}' radical, oblong-lanceolate, denticulate, 

 hirsute on both sides, sessile, those of the stems two or three ; all 

 but the lowest reduced to bracts ; heads in a bracted cyme ; 

 peduncles with black, glandular hairs and a close brown coating of 

 stellate hairs ; involucre about one-third of an inch in diameter, 

 its bracts linear-lanceolate, little imbricated, provided on the back 

 with straight, glandular and stellate hairs ; flowers all perfect, with 

 ligulate orange-covered corollas ; achenia about one line long, 

 darkbrown, linear in outline, terete, ten-ribbed, truncate ; pappus 

 a row of dirty white bristles." 



