COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 547 
Seed-time: July to September. . 
Range: Wisconsin to the Plains of the Saskatchewan, southward to 
issouri and New Mexico. 
Habitat: Prairies; dry fields and meadows. 
A troublesome, persistent weed, difficult to suppress, which is 
appearing locally in some of the Eastern States, traveling by 
the agencies of grass seeds or baled hay. Si 
Grazing animals reject it when growing 
because of the copious, bitter, and milky. 
juice; and when dried in hay its stems 
are too hard and woody to be eaten. 
It has a thick, deep-boring, woody root, 
from which several tufted stems arise, 
eight to eighteen inches high, erect, stiff, 
branching, round, and finely grooved. 
Lower leaves a half-inch to two inches in 
length, narrowly lance-shaped to linear, 
the upper ones becoming much smaller, 
until near the top they are mere awl- 
like scales. Heads erect, solitary and 
terminal, about a half-inch broad, usually 
five-flowered, the rays five-toothed at the 
tips, rosy pink or light purple; involucre 
about a half-inch high, cylindric, with an 
inner row of five to eight linear bracts, 
scarious-margined, united at the base, and 
surrounded by several very short outer 
ones. Achenes very slender, nearly & yo, 379, — Rush-like 
quarter-inch long, round, tapering, truncate Lygodesmia (Lygodesmia 
at summit, with a copious, light brown Funceay, Xt. 
pappus by which they are freely wind-distributed. (Fig. 379.) 
Means of control 
Prevent seed development and distribution by early and repeated 
cutting. Infested grass lands should be harvested before the first 
flowers mature, and should later be broken up for a cultivated 
cleansing crop before reseeding. For newly infested areas the 
