Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds.

Time of bloom: August to September.

Seed-time: September to October.

Range: New York and New Jersey to Ontario, Iowa, and Kansas, southward to Florida and Louisiana. Habitat: Meadows and pastures, roadsides, and waste places.

Fig. 326. - Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus). X 1/6.

A tall, unsightly weed, growing almost anywhere but with a preference for rich, moist, bottom-lands and borders of streams. Stem three to nine feet in height, hairy, erect, branching near the top, winged by the decurrent leaf-bases, very hard and woody when mature and therefore troublesome to harvesting machines. Leaves four inches to a foot long, lance-shaped, feather-veined, saw-toothed, usually rough on both sides, pointed at both ends, the upper ones mostly extending downward on the stem. Heads numerous in large, corymbose terminal clusters; they have two to ten drooping, pale yellow neutral rays of irregular size (occasionally none at all), and a darker yellow, globose disk, containing about thirty fertile florets. Bracts of the involucre spreading or deflexed, one-to three-rowed. Achenes broadly wedge-shaped, flattened, and winged with a pappus of two diverging awns.

Means Of Control

The deep perennial roots are most effectively dealt with by thorough cultivation of the ground; where that is impracticable, they may be starved by close cutting in May and June, and again in August and September, salt being used on the shorn surfaces in order to retard recovery. Small areas may be grubbed out or hand-pulled when the ground is soft.