94. POLYGONACEAE (BUCKWHEAT FAMILY) 
BROAD-LEAVED DOCK 
Rimex obtusifolius, L. 
Other English names: Bitter Dock, Butter Dock, Blunt-leaved Dock. 
. Introduced. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: June to August. 
Seed-time: August to November. 
Range: Throughout the United States and southern British America. 
Habitat: Fields, meadows, pastures, and waste places. 
A large, very robust plant, in many localities, the most common 
of the docks. Stem stout, erect, grooved, simple or with a few 
branches, somewhat rough, especially near the top. Lower leaves 
often more than a foot in length and half 
as broad, oblong, with heart-shaped bases 
and rounded or bluntly pointed tips, the 
veins somewhat hairy on the under side; 
petioles long and thick; stem leaves nar- 
rower and more pointed, all petioled. 
Panicle large and loose, the whorls some- 
what distant, often subtended by leafy 
braets; pedicels slender, jointed below the 
middle, longer than the calyx-lobes; the 
valves, which enclose the fruit, pointed- 
ovate, or nearly halberd-shaped, strongly 
net-veined, sharply toothed at the side, 
and only one of them bearing a tubercle 
on the back. Achene dark red, smooth 
and shining, its three faces concave and 
its angles faintly margined. 
Means of control the same as for Rumez 
erispus. (Fig. 54.) 
TALL SORREL 
Rimex Acetosa, L. 
Other English names: Garden Sorrel, Sour 
Fie. 54. — Broad- Dock. 
leaved Dock (Rumex ob- Introduced. Perennial. Propagates by 
tusifolius). X }. seeds and by rootstocks. 
