COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 453 
POVERTY WEED 
Toa axillaris, Pursh. 
Other English name: Small-flowered Marsh Elder. 
Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds and by rootstocks. 
Time of bloom: June to August. 
Seed-time: July to September. 
Range: Manitoba to British Columbia, southward to Nebraska, 
New Mexico, and California. 
Habitat: Cultivated crops, grain fields, meadows, and waste places. 
A very pernicious weed, difficult to suppress because of its exten- 
sive system of tough, woody rootstocks which send up many fruiting 
stalks, causing it to form dense patches, crowding 
and starving all other growth. It intrudes in 
most crops and thrives almost anywhere, but 
seems to have a preference for soil that is alkaline. 
The whole plant has a rank, unpleasant odor, 
causing it to be disliked by grazing animals. 
Stems six inches to nearly two feet high, erect, 
difftisely branched and very leafy. Leaves nar- 
rowly oblong or obovate, a half-inch to two inches 
long, somewhat thick and fleshy, rough-hairy, 
three-nerved, entire and sessile; the lower ones 
opposite, those near the top alternate. Heads 
inconspicuous, solitary, axillary, and drooping, 
the central florets sterile; bracts of the involucre 
united into a five-lobed cup, surrounding the fer- 
tile pistillate florets which are usually four or five 
in number. Achenes ovoid, flattened, sometimes 
keeled on one side, varying in color from green to p,, 316.— 
almost black; they have no pappus. (Fig. 316.) Poverty Weed 
(Iva axillaris). 
xX é 
Means of control e 
Prevent all seed production by repeated close cuttings through- 
out the growing season. The rootstocks must be starved to death 
after the manner of Horse Nettle or Perennial Sow Thistle, by short 
rotations with cultivated crops well fertilized and so well tilled 
that no leaf-growth is permitted to store the weed’s underground 
