24 THE MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION. 



III. ANNOTATED LIST OF MONTANA WEEDS. 



In order to note the introduction and spread of weeds in this 

 state, and to give the farmer some idea as to the names of the 

 weeds troublesome in any particular locality and facilitate their 

 destruction, if dangerous, the following enumeration of the known 

 weeds of Montana, with brief popular descriptions of the more 

 troublesome species and notes of their origin, occurrence and dis- 

 semination is appended. In case of doubt, specimens of any weed 

 with flower or fruit and leaves should be sent this Station for 

 determination. 



In a general work of the nature of this bulletin, it seems desir- 

 able, in the main, to use the older, more conservative nomencla- 

 ture and to adopt the wider limitation of species, not necessarily 

 because they are better or more accurate, but because they are 

 more easily understood by the ordinary reader and are more 

 readily found in the usual works of reference. For the same 

 reason technical terms have been avoided as far as possible, and 

 the popular names of plants have been employed wherever it could 

 be done without ambiguity. Yet, as common names are frequent- 

 ly used here, for two or more very different species, or lor different 

 plants in other sections of the Union, as in the case of the pursely, 

 cucklebur, horseweed, ragweed, milkweed, iron weed, poverty- 

 weed, &c, it is necessary to make the scientific name the basis of 

 classification and description. Hence the plants hereafter enumer- 

 ated are arranged alphabetically according to their scientific 

 names, but the index of popular names appended will enable these 

 to be used with equal facility. 



A few terms need explanation. Flowers and fruit are ar- 

 ranged in a spike when they form a close slender column like those 

 of the plaintain and timothy; they form a panicle when they are 

 scattered on slender stalks, like the oat, and they are called a head 

 when they are aggregated in a dense cluster, as in the case of the 

 clover and the sunflower. 



In the list below the weeds most troublesome in the state are 

 printed in black letter and the rare introductions are starred (*). 



