gated chiefly by means of seed, from 300 to 2,500 seeds sometimes being produced by a single cluster of plants which have started from a single seed. Seeds are easily carried by the wind and by animals. Found abundantly in meadows and pastures, especially along roadsides in all parts of the West from the Great Lakes to the Pacific, and particularly obnoxious because the seeds and small pieces of the plant sometimes cause serious injury to stock by making their way into the gums and jaws and between the teeth, thus causing inflammation and the formation of pus.

Other species of wild barley are abundant in the United States. The H. secalinum is a very troublesome weed in Utah and the Pacific coast. It is much like the little barley. Another form, much like squirrel-tail, but with more slender spikes, is common from Utah to Montana and Wyoming, the H. caespitosum.

Sedge Family (Cyperaceae).-Grasslike or rushlike herbs, with fibrous roots, generally solid stems, which are either round, triangular or flattened; leaves with closed sheaths; flowers in spikes, chiefly with three stamens; styles two, three or rarely undivided; fruit an achene; ovary one-celled with a single erect ovule.

Northern Nut Grass (Cyperus esculentus, L.).—A grasslike plant, but distinguished from the true grasses by its triangular stems; when young, leafy at the base, later the leaves terminate the stem; flowers arranged in spikes, each consisting of numerous spikelets, which bear from twelve to thirty light chestnut or straw-colored flowers; scales of the spikelets rough margined; achene longer than broad. Plant spreads extensively by its underground nutlike tubers and, in rainy seasons especially, is in evidence everywhere in the state, its yellow color making patches of it easily visible at a distance; most troublesome in early spring; common in low grounds.

Southern Nut Grass (Cyperus rotundus, L.).-A long

leaved, persistent perennial, bearing scaly, tuberous, root bearing rootstocks, with a stout culm; leaves about onefourth inch wide with a cluster near the top having the appearance of an umbel, the leaves of which number three to eight; flowers borne in spikes consisting of numerous spikelets, each from twelve to forty-flowered; stems triangular; scales dark purple; seed three-angled.

Common in places from Virginia to Florida and Texas; also occurs in the old world and is widely distributed in the tropics.

Rush (Scirpus atrovirens, Muhl.).-A stout perennial, two to four feet high, with pale green leaves, the margins scabrous, upper leaves whorled; spikelets dull greenish, or brown, ovoid; bristles strongly barbed, nearly straight; fruit crowded, in scant, irregular clusters. Common in low grounds, along streams from New England to Saskatchewan, Nebraska and Missouri. It is also said to be a

Fig. 95. Northern nut grass (Cyperus troublesome weed in esculentus).

Minnesota. S. validus

is the common bulrush of our streams and ponds.

Rush Family (Juncaceae).-Grasslike herbs; inconspicuous, regular flowers in paniculate or corymbose clusters; perianth of six similar glumaceous parts, rarely four to five cleft; stamens three to six; pistil one-celled

or three-celled with many ovules. Few genera, with about 200 species widely distributed.

Slender Rush (Juncus tenuis, Willd.).—A leafy perennial with wiry stems eight to eighteen inches high; leaves flat or channeled; flowers in panicles shorter than the involucral leaves; flowers green; sepals lanceolate, acute, spreading in fruit; capsules green; seeds small, minutely ribbed; common in eastern North America, especially in beaten paths.

Lily Family (Liliaceae).-Herbs or rarely woody plants with regular, symmetrical flowers, perianth not glumaceous, of three sepals and three petals; six stamens; ovary three-celled; fruit a pod or berry; embryo inclosed in the hard albumen. An order of about 1,600 species containing several ornamental plants, such as the lily, lily of the valley. and yucca; some medicinal plants like squill, aloe, false hellebore; several poisonous plants, like death camas and colchicum and a number of weeds.

Meadow Garlic (Allium canadense, Kalm).-Bulb ovoid; outer coat fibrous,

rush (Juncus tenuis).

reticulated; scape one foot or more Fig. 96. Slender high; leaves narrowly linear, slightly rush convex beneath; flowers in umbels often bulbiferous, white or pinkish; segments of perianth lanceolate, equal or exceeding the stamens. Common in moist meadows; said to flavor milk when fed to dairy cows.

Wild Garlic (Allium vineale, L.).-Bulb ovoid; scape slender; leaves several, terete and hollow, slender, channeled above; flowers in erect umbels, but often replaced with small bulblets, which are tipped with an appendage; flowers green or purple. Naturalized from Europe, common in fields eastward, often giving a bad flavor to wheat flour.

Star-of-Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum, L.).— Plants growing in tufts; bulbs ovoid; scape slender, four to nine inches high; flowers corymbose, opening in sunshine; perianth of six white, spreading segments, oblong, lanceolate, white above, greenish beneath. Naturalized from Europe, common in lawns and roadsides, eastward and south to Kentucky.

Pepper Family (Piperaceae).-Perennial herbs with alternate, entire broad leaves; flowers small, incomplete, in bracted spikes; calyx and corolla wanting; stamens six to eight, free from the ovary; ovary with few straight ovules; seed globose or ovoid; endosperm mealy, copious; embryo small; fruit a capsule or berrylike. A small order of four species. In the South represented by the lizard's tail (Saururus cernuus), which occurs in swamps and shallow water.

Yerba Mansa (Anemopsis californica, Hook.).-An acrid, perennial herb with thick, strongly pungent, astringent and aromatic creeping rootstock and jointed or scapelike stem, one-half to one and one-half feet high, with a broadly ovate leaf, clasping above the middle, and a fascicle of one to three small, petioled leaves in the axil; radical leaves thick, elliptical oblong, rounded above, more or less narrowed toward the cordate base, two to six inches long, somewhat ciliate; petioles about equaling or shorter than the blade, dilated and sheathing at the very base; bracts of involucre white, five to eight, persistent, rounded and oblong; flowers in a close conical spike, each flower subtended by a white bract; stamens six to eight, short filaments adnate to base; ovary sunk in rachis of spike, one-celled, of three to four carpels, with as many spreading stigmas and parietal placentæ; seeds rounded, punctulate. In moist saline localities from the Sacramento to Southern California and eastward to Southern Utah and the Rio Grande.

Nettle Family (Urticaceae).—Herbs, shrubs or trees

with stipules; flowers monoecious or dioecious, rarely perfect; calyx free from the one to two-celled ovary which forms the one-seeded fruit; stamens as many as the lobes of the calyx or sometimes fewer; opposite; seeds albuminous or ex-albuminous; when albuminous, the radical points upward; cotyledons broad.

Hemp (Cannabis sativa, L.).—A stout, rough, dioecious annual; leaves digitate, five to seven, linear, lanceolate; leaflets coarsely toothed; inner bark of tough fibers; staminate flowers in axillary, compound racemes, pistillate flowers in erect spikes, consist

ing of the calyx, with a single sepal folded around the ovary; fruit, an achene; seed oily, embryo straight. Widely distributed throughout eastern North America, north of the Gulf States, and the Rocky Mountains.

Common Slender Nettle (Urtica gracilis, Ait.).—A perennial herb armed with stinging hairs; stem slender, two to six feet high; leaves ovate-lanceolate, pointed serrate, three to fivenerved from a somewhat

rounded base, nearly smooth, Fig. 97, Common nettle (Ur'tica gracilis). petioles somewhat bristly; flowers small, numerous, dioecious, or some with staminate and pistillate flower clusters; calyx deeply fourparted; stamens four, stellate with calyx; inclosed by it. Common along fences and waste places in eastern North America to Kansas, and the Rocky Mountains to Colorado.

Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica, L.).—Like the preceding, stem beset with bristly, stinging hairs; two to three feet