Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds.

Time of bloom: August to September.

Seed-time: September to October.

Range: New Jersey to Ohio, and southward to Florida and Texas.

Habitat: Dry meadows and pastures, roadsides, and waste places.

Patches of this weed are very conspicuous in autumn because of the showy, plumose heads of seed. Stem two to three feet tall, springing from a large, deep-boring root, erect, finely hairy, resinous, branching at the top. Leaves alternate, specked with resinous dots, those near the base lance-shaped, sparingly toothed, three-nerved, and short-petioled, becoming gradually linear, entire, and sessile as they ascend the stalk. Florets all perfect, the corollas very slender and deeply five-toothed, white or cream-colored, the heads very numerous, in loosely clustered terminal panicles. Achenes oblong, small, brown, ten-ribbed, attached to a pappus of numerous long and very plumy hairs, yellowish to nearly white. (Fig. 292.) A near relative of the preceding plant, the Prairie False Boneset (Kuhnia gluti-nosa, Ell.) ranges from Illinois to the Dakotas and southward to Alabama and Texas. It is similar in habit and in season of bloom and fruitage, but is taller and stouter, more hairy, and has foliage somewhat viscid or sticky as well as resinous. Its pappus plumes are tawny brown.

Fig. 292.- False Boneset (Kuhnia eu-patorioides). X 1/4.

Means Of Control

Prevent seed formation by cutting when in first bloom. Cultivation of the soil will kill the perennial roots, but, where that is not desirable, frequent hoe-cutting and salting will starve them. Or the plants may be hand-pulled when the ground is soft, the single taproot making the process easy.