YARROW MILFOIL OLD MAN'S PEPPER NOSEBLEED

(Achillea Millefolium) Thistle family



Flower-heads - Grayish-white, rarely pinkish, in a hard, close,

flat-topped, compound cluster. Ray florets 4 to 6, pistillate,

fertile; disk florets yellow, afterward brown, perfect, fertile.

Stem: Erect, from horizontal rootstalk, 1 to 2 ft. high, leafy,

sometimes hairy. Leaves: Very finely dissected (Millefolium =

thousand leaf), narrowly oblong in outline.

Preferred Habitat - Waste land, dry fields, banks, roadsides.

Flowering Season - June-November.

Distribution - Naturalized from Europe and Asia throughout North

America.



Everywhere this commonest of common weeds confronts us; the

compact, dusty-looking clusters appearing not by waysides only,

around the world, but in the mythology, folklore, medicine, and

literature of many peoples. Chiron, the centaur, who taught its

virtues to Achilles that he might make an ointment to heal his

Myrmidons wounded in the siege of Troy, named the plant for this

favorite pupil, giving his own to the beautiful blue corn-flower

(Centaurea Cyanus). As a love-charm; as an herb-tea brewed by

crones to cure divers ailments, from loss of hair to the ague; as

an inducement to nosebleed for the relief of congestive headache;

as an ingredient of an especially intoxicating beer made by the

Swedes, it is mentioned in old books. Nowadays we are satisfied

merely to admire the feathery masses of lace-like foliage formed

by young plants, to whiff the wholesome, nutty, autumnal odor of

its flowers, or to wonder at the marvelous scheme it employs to

overrun the earth.



Like the daisy, each small flower in a cluster, as symmetrically

arranged as brain coral, is made up of a large number of minute

but perfect florets, suited to attract insects by making a better

show than each could do alone, and by offering them accessible

feeding places close together, where they may feast with minimum

loss of time. Simultaneous cross-fertilization of many florets

must be effected by every visitor crawling over a cluster. The

florets in each disk open in regular array toward the centers. At

the expense of stamens, which are absent in the grayish-white ray

florets, they have attained their development, another instance

of "progress by loss" from the evolutionary standpoint. By

prolonging its season of bloom to get relief from the fierce

competition for insect visitors in midsummer; by increase through

seeds, and runners too; by contenting itself with neglected

corners of the earth, the yarrow gives us many valuable lessons

on how to succeed.



DOG'S or FETID CAMOMILE; MAYWEED; PIG-STY DAISY; DILLWEED;