SAURURACEAE (LIZARD-TAIL FAMILY) 85 
Means of control 
Put the Jand to a crop requiring hoe-cultivation; the use of a 
cultivator only serves to spread the pest by scattering the tubers. 
Small thickets should be grubbed out, or the tops cut and the roots 
treated with caustic soda or carbolic acid. 
YERBA MANSA 
Anemépsis califérnica, Hook. 
Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds and by rootstocks. 
Time of bloom: May to September. 
Seed-time: June to October. 
Range: Southern California to Southern Utah, Arizona, and New 
Mexico. 
Habitat: Moist, saline soil; troublesome in cultivated crops. 
The most troublesome part of this plant is its thick, creeping 
rootstock, which is very acrid, astringent, and strong-scented. 
Stem scape-like, six inches to two feet tall, with a ates broadly 
ovate or oblong, clasping leaf just 
above the middle, in the axil of 
which is a fascicle of one to three 
much smaller petioled leaves; root 
leaves thick, oblong, with rounded 
apex and heart-shaped base, usually 
slightly broadened toward the tip, 
entire, two to eight inches in 
length, on petioles about as long as 
the blades, dilated and sheathing 
at base. Flowers very small, 
densely crowded on a_ thickish 
conical, terminal spike about an 
inch long, at the base of which is 
a persistent involucre of six or 
eight oblong, showy, white bracts 
about an inch in length, having the 
appearance of petals and resembling 
a large white anemone. The true 
flowers on the spike have no 
Fig. 46.— Yerba Mansa (Anemop- 
sis californica). X }. 
