PLANTAGINACEAE (PLANTAIN FAMILY) 393 
Range: New Brunswick to the Northwest Territory and Alaska, 
southward to Florida and Kansas. 
Habitat: Grasslands. 
A much more pernicious weed than its broad-leaved relatives ; 
they seem to prefer yard and roadside, but this species overruns 
meadows and pastures. Cattle feed on the plant without any 
apparent dislike, though it is stringy 
and somewhat bitter and detracts from 
the quality of the dairy products. 
(Fig. 273.) 
Rootstock short and thick, with many 
branching rootlets. Leaves thickly 
tufted, oblong-lance-shaped, thick, en- 
tire, hairy on both sides with small tufts 
of brownish hair at the base, three- to 
seven-ribbed, tapering to margined peti- 
oles. Scape very slender, strong and 
wiry, five-grooved, hairy; the spike at 
its summit is at first capitate and very 
dense, but lengthens with the procession 
of bloom, becoming cylindric and more 
‘than an inch long; calyx-lobes and sub- 
tending bracts greenish brown, scarious. : 
Capsule longer than the calyx, slightly _ Fic. 273. — Narrow-leaved 
narrowed upward, the pyxis opening at erase — lantage lanceo- 
about the middle and containing but : ir 
two seeds, grooved on the inner face. An average plant will 
produce about a thousand seeds; these are a very common 
impurity of grass and clover seeds. When wet, the seeds are 
very mucilaginous, a quality which aids their distribution. 
Means of control 
Sow clean seed. Small areas in lawn or yard may be treated with 
carbolic acid after piercing each plant to the root with a skewer or 
pointed stick ; or the weeds may be killed by deep cutting with hoe 
or spud. But rankly infested meadows and pastures should be 
plowed under, and a well-tilled hoed crop inserted in the rota- 
tion before reseeding. 
