154 THE INDIANA WEED BOOK. 



beautiful, blesses the existence of these Composite, for the hues of 

 the asters, golden-rods, sunflowers, etc., absent, our late summer 

 and autumn scenery would lose much of the charm due to their 

 variety of color. 



Since the number of species of Indiana weeds in this family arc 

 so many they are divided into three groups, separated by the fol- 

 lowing simple key or table. This grouping is for convenience only, 

 and necessitates the changing of the order of these weeds as they 

 occur in the botanies. 



KEY TO GROUPS OF INDIANA COMPOSITE WEEDS. 



a. Heads without visible ray-flowers around the margins, the flowers 

 rarely yellow, all discoid or tubular or the rays very rudimentary. 



Group A., p. 154. 

 aa. Heads with one or more rows of prominent ray-flowers about the mar- 

 gins, those of center all tubular. 

 b. Rays yellow. Group B., p. 1G8. 



bb. Rays white, blue or pinkish. Group C, p. 175. 



Group A. 



To this group, having the flowers of the head all tubular, belong 

 our weeds known as iron-weeds, bonesets or snake-roots, everlast- 

 ings, wormwoods, fircweeds, burdock and thistles. With them are 

 also included the horse-weed, foetid marigold, tansy and two or 

 three species of beggar-ticks or Spanish needles, which have the 

 rays rudimentary or shorter than the disk flowers. 



118. Vernonia fasciculata Michx. Western Iron- weed. (P. N. 1.) 



Erect, branching, glabrous or sparingly hairy, 2-0 feet high ; leaves 

 thick, alternate, lanceolate, pointed, 3-G inches long, sharply toothed. 

 Heads numerous, short-stalked, 20-30 flowered; receptacle flat, miked: 

 flowers reddish-purple; involucre bell-shaped, the bracts in several rows 

 all closely overlapping. Achenes cylindric, glabrous, 8-10 ribbed: pappus 

 of 2 rows of brownish bristles, the inner hair-like, the outer shorter, 

 chatty. (Eig. 114.) 



Very common throughout the State in permanent grass-lands 

 and along roadsides. July Sept. One of the worst of pasture 

 weeds, crowding out the blue-grass, and in places taking almost 

 complete possession of the soil. The form above described is that 

 most commonly found in dry soil in open upland wooded pastures. 

 Associated with it in moist, rich bottom pastures are the tall iron- 

 weed ( V. maxima Small) 5-1 feet high and having the leaves thin, 

 finely toothed, achenes hispid and inflorescence loosely branched 

 and open; and the eastern iron-weed (V. noveboracensis L.), 3-12 



