Introduced. Annual. Propagates by seeds.

Time of bloom: July to September.

Seed-time: August to October.

Range: Ohio to Kansas, and southward to the Gulf of Mexico.

Habitat: Dry fields, meadows, and waste places.

A very conspicuous weed because of its white flowers and the red color which the foliage often assumes. It is a native of tropical America and seems to have a preference for sterile, sandy, or gravelly soils, into which its roots bore deeply, appropriating an undue share of the little food and moisture available.

Stem erect, furrowed, swollen at the nodes, slender, branching, two to five feet in height. Leaves opposite, narrowly ovate, long-pointed, becoming lance-shape near the top, smooth and entire, with short, slender petioles. Flowers in large terminal, branching, nearly leafless panicles, the blossoms very small, with silvery white, five-parted calyx, subtended by three dry, white, papery bracts; the pistillate flowers are densely white-woolly at the base and much longer than the bracts. Seed small, nearly globular, with valveless utricle, included in the calyx. (Fig. 79.)

Fig. 79. - Juba's Bush (Iresine paniculata). X 1/4.

Means Of Control

Close cutting or pulling in early summer before any seed has matured. Enrichment and cultivation of the ground, providing humus which will enable the soil to retain moisture and support better plants.