500 COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 
Means of control 
Only by breaking up the sod, and putting the ground under 
thorough cultivation for a year or two, can it be cleansed of the 
perennial roots and the dormant seeds of this obnoxious weed. 
-Waste-land plants, the wind-blown seeds of which may infest the 
country side, should receive the attention of the whole community. 
COMMON SAGE-BUSH 
Artemisia tridentata, Nutt. 
Other English names: Sage-wood, Sage-brush, Mountain 
Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: July to September. 
Seed-time: August to November. : 
Range: Nebraska to Colorado, Utah, and California, 
northward to Montana and British Columbia. 
Habitat: Dry plains and foothills. 
Drought does not seem to affect this plant, and 
when settled among less sturdy growths it robs them of 
most of the food and moisture available. 
Stems shrubby and branching, one to ten feet tall, 
covered with silvery gray hair. Leaves a half-inch to 
but little more than an inch long, narrow, wedge- 
shaped, sessile, with three to five blunt teeth at the 
tip, which is the broadest part. Flowers sessile on 
crowded spikes in the axils and at the ends of the 
branches, the terminal spikes often dividing into large 
panicles. Heads only about an eighth of an inch in 
diameter, the florets all perfect and fertile. When ripe 
the heads fall entire from the spikes- and are blown 
far and wide, particularly in winter over crusted snows, 
infesting many a home pasture and meadow with their 
perennial roots and uneatable, bitter foliage, necessitat- 
ing the breaking-up and cultivation of the ground in 
order to rid it of their presence. It should interest an 
Sage-bush entire community to see that waste-land plants are 
hacadhardey ‘destroyed or at least prevented from developing seed. 
xt. (Fig. 347.) 
