114 



TI1K INDIANA WEED BOOK 



long-stalked; stem leaves narrower, ovate-oblong, the uppermost sessile. 

 Flowers small, nearly white, in racemes which are bracted only at base. 

 Fruit globose, nearly 1/6 inch long, recurved; nutlets with margins and 

 usually the back thickly armed with prickles. 



Common in dry soil along borders of thickets, roadsides and in 

 open woods and old fields. June-Sept, Occurring with it or in 

 similar places and about as common is a European species, the blue 

 bur or burseed (L. lappula h.). It is an annual, 1-2 feet high, 

 clothed with short gray hairs and With the leaves linear or oblong, 

 sessile or stalked ; the flowers pale blue, in leafy bracted 1-sided 

 racemes, and the fruit not curved downward. Among the various 

 fruits and seeds which rely upon animals for distribution, those of 

 these two beggars' lice are most troublesome, being especially an- 

 noying to horses, dogs, sheep and man. They are easily known by 

 being in groups of four and shaped somewhat like a quarter of an 

 apple. The tip of each little prickle is barbed upward like a har- 

 poon so that the burs are \ery difficult to remove from clothing. 

 Remedies: pulling or mowing and burning; thorough cultivation; 

 late fall or early spring plowing. 



Wh6iT Thief 



78. LlTHOSPEKMl'M 



T >Ii\'EN8K 



weed. Redroot. (A. I. 2.) 



Corn Gromwell. 



Pigeon- 



Erect, usually branched, 0-20 inches high, pale green clothed with 

 appressed grayish hairs; leaves linear or lanceolate, sessile without veins. 

 Flowers small, dull white, solitary and sessile in the axils of leafy bracts 

 along the spikes; corolla tube not longer than the calyx, without scales or 

 Nutlets hard, brown, conical, 1/10 inch long, wrinkled and pitted. 

 78.) 



Common in the northern half of the 



State along railways, roadsides and in 



cultivated fields; less common but 



rapidly spreading southward. April- 



'^k'fVl/ ^%Er ^f V^ vJA" ^ <j pt. Prefers dry, more or less sandy 



j$ ^mlhrf^r so ^' a - lc * wnere abundant especially 



harmful to winter wheat, rye, and 



meadows. The seeds often germinate 



in late autumn, the plant then being a 



winter annual, blooming and ripening 



the lowermost seeds the next spring 



before the winter cereals are cut. It 



rig. 78. (After Shaw.) j s therefore very difficult to remove 



Prom grain fields. The seeds are frequent among those of wheat and 



hay and are also distributed by birds, threshing machines and 



