COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 501 
COLTSFOOT 
Tussildago Férfara, L. 
Other English names: Coughwort, Ginger Root, Clayweed, Dove- 
dock, Horsehoof, Foalfoot. 
Introduced. Perennial. Propagates by seeds and by rootstocks. 
Time of bloom: Early April to June. 
Seed-time: May to July. 
tae : Nova Scotia to Minnesota, southward to Pennsylvania and 
io. 
Habitat: Moist clay soil; thin pastures, alluvial banks, along 
brooks and roadsides. 
Seapes slender, springing from thick succulent rootstocks and’ 
appearing before the leaves, at first but a few inches high, bearing 
reddish scalés that are slightly white- Wy 
woolly, and holding erect a single flower- 
head about an inch broad, golden yellow; 
the flowers have the odor of honey and 
the pollen furnishes bees with early prov- - 
ender. Ray-florets in several rows, 
pistillate and fertile; disk-florets perfect 
but sterile, the corolla tubular and _five- 
cleft; after a head has been fertilized the 
stalk rapidly elongates to a foot or more 
in height, and the head is so bowed that 
it is protected from rain by the bell- 
shaped involucre until the achenes have 
formed, when it is again erected and 
opens out a ball of downy pappus, whiter 
and more floss-like than that of the dan- 
delion. Near the end of the flowering 
season the leaves appear, rising from the 
rootstocks, nearly round, heart-shaped at 
base, slightly lobed and toothed, thick, Fic. 348. — Coltsfoot 
smooth, and dark green above but white- (7sstlago Farfara).” x &. 
woolly underneath, with petioles about as long as the blades; 
they continue to grow all summer, becoming often six or eight 
inches broad. (Fig. 348.) 
