Descriptive Flora 



225 



Leaves simple, alternate. Blades entire or wavy, about y 2 inch 

 long. A common weed of lawns and pastures. The leaves when 

 chewed make a fair gum. Used by small birds, notably mocking 

 birds, larksparrows, and scissor-tailed fly catchers in construct- 

 ing nests. Widespread, especially common in lawns and city 

 wastes. March to fall. 



Filago proUfera (Nutt.) Britton. Poverty Weed. 



Chewing Gum. 



Similar to the above species but flowers clusters are larger, 

 over three-eighths inch (1 cm) across. Widespread. March to 

 fall. 



Plucked purpurascens (Swartz) DC. Marsh Fleabane. 



Erect plants, 1 to 3 feet high, blossoming in late summer and 

 fall in broad-topped clusters of deep lavender to faint reddish- 

 purple flowers. Leaves simple, alternate. Blades shallowly but 

 coarsely toothed, broadly lanceolate, sessile. Flowers composite, 

 very small, cone-shaped, with several rows of deep pink to 

 lavender bracts inclosing numerous tiny, tubular disk flowers. 

 Achenes very small, crowned by a tuft of white capillary hairs. 

 Grows in rich moist soil along lake margins, in creek beds and 

 similar situations. 



Gnaphalium falcatum Lam. Cudweed. 



Rather slender stemmed plants, 6 to 18 inches high, white- 

 woolly foliage and compact, woolly clusters of silvery "rayless" 

 composite flowers in the axil of each of the upper alternate 

 leaves. Basal leaves spatulate, 1 to 2y 2 " long, about equally 

 woolly on both sides. Upper stem leaves narrower and 1 to l 1 /^" 

 long. (Flowers composite). Ray flowers none. Outer bracts of 

 the involucre woolly. Common in sandy regions. Rarely seen in 

 the Edwards Plateau. 



Gnaphalium wrightii Gray. Cudweed. 



Perennials, 8 to 16 inches high, with densely white-woolly 

 foliage and small compact clusters of silvery white flowers. 



