Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds. Time of bloom: July to September. Seed-time: Late August to November. Range: Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri, westward to the Rocky

Mountains, New Mexico, and Arizona; also in Manitoba and the Northwest Territory. Habitat: Dry upland prairies and hillsides, waste places.

The foliage of this plant has a very unpleasant odor, which causes it to be rejected by grazing cattle; but the blossoms yield much nectar, which the bees turn into clear honey of fine flavor; therefore bee keepers are its friends, for it blooms at a time when bee-pasture is not so very plentiful.

Fig. 141. - Clammy-weed (Polanisia graveo-lans). x 1/6.

Fig. 142. - Pink Cleome (Cleome serru-lata). X 1/8.

Stems two to three feet tall, erect, smooth, with a few branches near the top. Leaves alternate, three-parted, or the uppermost simple, the leaflets oblong, veiny, and pointed at each end; leaves near the base have slender petioles, but the upper ones are sessile or very short-petioled. Flowers in terminal racemes, rose-colored, sometimes nearly white, very showy, the four petals being about a half-inch in length and half as broad; sepals four, often persistent; ovary stalked, with a gland at its base; stamens usually six, occasionally four, inserted above the petals on the stipe of the ovary; pedicels subtended by small, lance-shaped bracts. Pods one-celled, very slender, one to two inches long, pointed at each end, crowded with seeds. (Fig. 142.)

Means Of Control

Cut or pull before the earliest flowers have matured any pods.