504 COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 
lance-shaped, thin, irregularly cut and 
toothed, the lower ones’ narrowing 
to margined petioles, the upper ones 
sessile, clasping, often auricled at 
base. Flowers in open terminal 
panicles, the heads greenish white, 
the flowers all tubular and fertile, 
hardly exceeding the nearly cylindric, 
smooth involucre, which is slightly 
swollen at the base. Achenes oblong, 
with very glistening, ‘fine, white 
pappus. (Fig. 350.) 
Means of control 
© Prevent seed production by pull- 
ing or close cutting before the first 
flowers mature. 
Fic. 350.— Fireweed (Erechtites 
hieracifolia). x }. COMMON GROUNDSEL 
Senécio vulgaris, L. 
Other English names: Grinsel, Simson, Birdseed, Chicken Weed. 
Introduced. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: April to October. 
Seed-time: May to November. 
Range: Newfoundland and Hudson Bay to North Carolina, Michi- 
gan, and South Dakota. Also on the Pacific Coast. 
Habitat: Gardens and cultivated fields, waste places. 
In Europe, whence this plant came to us, it is often sown to 
furnish green food for cage birds and for poultry. In this country 
it is frequently a great vexation to the truck gardener, for in fertile 
soil it sometimes appears in such quantities as to smother all other 
seedlings. 
Stem six to fifteen inches high, succulent, hollow, slightly angled, 
rouch branched, and leafy to the top. Leaves oblong, pinnatifid, 
the segments also oblong and toothed; the lower ones taper back- 
ward to a petiole, but those of the stem are clasping and some- 
