488 COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 
beneath. Flowers in loose corymbose clusters, the heads on 
long, slender pedicels, about a half-inch broad, with six to fifteen 
. white rays, notched at the tips; rays and disk-florets both fertile. 
Achenes compressed oblong, without pappus. 
Means of control the same as for common Yarrow. (Fig. 339.) 
MAYWEED 
Anthemis Cétula, L. 
Other English names: Dog Fennel, Dog Finkle, Dillweed, Fetid 
Chamomile, Stinking Daisy, White Stinkweed. 
Introduced. Annual and winter annual. Propagates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: June to October. 
Seed-time: July to November. 
Range: All over North America except the extreme North. Native 
of Europe, but widely distributed in Asia, Africa, and Australia. 
Habitat: Nearly all soils; invades almost all crops. 
In fields and along roadsides, and particularly in barnyards, 
where the soil is enriched with the constant droppings of cattle, 
this vile weed thrives; for no grazing animal will eat it because of 
its rank odor and acrid juices. The modern farmer rides his “self 
binder” through the grain fields and doesn’t 
curse the Mayweeds as did the men who had to 
“cradle the wheat” and bind it with hand- 
twisted straw withes, and whose hands, arms, 
and feet became as though scalded from repeated 
contact with the acrid, glandular foliage of this 
weed and from its seedy tops sifting into their 
shoes as they swung the cradle or the scythe. 
“The Mayweed doth burn and the Thistle doth 
fret,’ wrote Thomas Tusser, sympathizing with 
his harvesters, nearly four hundred years ago; 
and there are localities in this country where the, 
words are yet applicable. 
Stem six to twenty inches in height, smooth 
below but glandular and somewhat hairy above, 
much branched, and spreading. Leaves alternate, 
Fie. 3840.— 5 % : ? <a A 
Mayweed (Anthe- Sessile, pinnate, twice or thrice divided into 
mis Cotula). X4%. linear, acute segments. Heads numerous, soli- 
