WEEDS 179 
the stem with leaves or flowers; hang it up to dry. As soon as you can 
learn the name, put it on a slip of paper and fasten it to the plant. This 
will assist everybody in the school in learning the names of the weeds. 
For a more convenient and more permanent collection the specimens 
should be properly pressed, mounted on stiff paper, and labeled. 
4. °A collection of weed seeds. — Get a small quantity of seeds of each 
kind of common weed and put them in a small bottle or an envelope. 
Small vials of uniform size are best for the purpose and can be pur- 
chased at trifling expense. Whenever it is possible to learn the name, 
the specimen should be properly labeled. 
5. How many seeds one plant bears. — Take any weed with seeds 
large enough to be easily found and count those from a definite part 
of the plant. Then multiply by the number of such parts that the 
whole plant has. For example, in case of pigeon grass, count the num- 
ber of seeds in an average-sized head and multiply by the number of 
heads. The plant stools, as wheat and oats do, and will have a number 
of stalks that are connected at the root. These stalks must all be in- 
cluded, as they come from one seed. The seeds of a mustard may easily 
be determined by making a count of those in several pods and then 
finding the average number of seeds per pod. Now multiply that by 
the number of pods to the plant. This number may be estimated by 
counting the pods on a portion of the plant, as a fifth or a tenth, and 
then multiplying. 
6. To tell whether a plant is an annual, a biennial, or a perennial. — 
(a) The first season of a plant’s growth from a seed we cannot distin- 
guish these three kinds from one another bv their appearance except 
that biennials and perennials do not usually bloom until the second 
year. (5) In subsequent seasons we can usually find dead remnants of 
the previous year’s growth at the base of the plant in case of biennials 
and perennials. (c) When plants come up in the spring it is easy to 
distinguish the seedlings because they are comparatively tiny and weak 
while the biennials and perennials coming from old roots are coarser and 
stronger. (d) Biennials cannot be distinguished from perennials by 
their appearance. We must have actual acquaintance with the life 
history of the plant to tell whether it belongs to one class or the other. 
It would be well to begin with familiar plants and observe the features 
just mentioned, then extend the study to less familiar species and con- 
tinue it until a satisfactory degree of skill has been developed. 
