134 ILLECEBRACEAE (KNOTWORT FAMILY) 
Leaves awl-shaped, opposite, with joined bases, and about a 
half-inch long. In their axils and at the ends of the stems 
are clustered the numerous minute greenish flowers; these 
have no petals, but have five or ten stamens, two distinct styles 
and a deeply cut five-lobed calyx (occasionally four-lobed) with 
a hardened, cup-like tube which later encloses and persistently 
holds the solitary seed. These hard seed-coverings — with their 
points broken off — are sometimes an impurity of grass and clover 
seeds. (Fig. 86.) 
Means of control . 
Autumn plants should be destroyed by surface cultivation in 
early spring. Where such tillage is practicable, persistent hoe- 
cutting during the growing season will suppress the weed. In 
lawns a few drops of carbolie acid, squirted on the crowns with 
a machine oil-can, destroys the plants with less defacement of the 
sward than the hoe would make. 
FORKED CHICKWEED 
Anychia polygonoides, Raf. 
Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: June to September. 
Seed-time: July to October. 
Range: Maine to Minnesota and southward to Florida, Alabama, 
and Arkansas. 
Habitat: Gardens, lawns, fields, roadsides. 
A low, widely spreading, nearly prostrate weed, the stems three 
to ten inches long, branching by many forkings; the whole plant 
finely hairy, at least when young. Leaves many and crowded, a 
quarter-inch to a half-inch long, narrowly lance-shape, sessile or 
tapering to very short petioles. Flowers greenish and so minute 
as to be hardly noticeable, sitting sessile in the forks in small 
clusters; they are without petals, but have a five-parted calyx, two 
stigmas, and two or three, occasionally five, stamens. Each blos- 
som produces but one seed, the small, plump, globose utricle pro- 
truding beyond the calyx-lobes. 
