Small Rabbit Tobacco (_Filago nivea_) is a smaller plant but is more densely clothed with woolly hairs. The minute, ball-like heads are clustered together. Both of these plants are also known as poverty-weed, chewing gum, and ladies’ tobacco. Poverty-weed is a suitable name for them in the sheep-grazing section of Central Texas which has been heavily over-grazed. In many pastures they take the place of grasses as a ground cover. The leaves may be chewed for gum. The rabbit tobacco is closely related to the cudweeds and everlastings. The plantain-leaved everlasting grows in moist woods in East Texas.
Southern Marsh Fleabane (_Pluchea purpurascens_) grows only in marshes or in continually moist places. The flowers are more rose-colored than purplish, as the name would indicate, and the tawny bristles on the seeds soon give a brownish tint to the heads. It often grows in pleasing combination with the blue mist-flower. It ranges from Texas to Florida and tropical America and blooms in the summer and fall.
The plants are commonly about two feet high, the stems being unbranched below and very leafy. The broad leaves are pointed at the tip and narrowed into stalk-like bases except on the upper part of the stem. The leaf-margins are irregularly toothed. The fragrant flowers are borne in small oblong heads in a flat-topped cluster.
The cudweeds are closely related to the marsh fleabane. They are particularly abundant in the mountains of West Texas, the loveliest one being Wright’s cudweed or everlasting (_Gnaphalium wrightii_), which has white flowers and foliage.
[Illustration: ROCK DAISY BLACKFOOT DAISY]
Prairie Blackfoot Daisy. Mountain Daisy. Rock Daisy (_Melampodium cinereum_) is very abundant on limestone slopes and in dry soil from Texas to Arkansas, Kansas, and Arizona. The scientific name is from the Greek words meaning “black foot” and refers to the blackened roots and stalks.
Blackfoot Daisy (_Melampodium ramosissimum_) grows from a black woody base and has many branched stems which form a dense rounded mound one to two feet broad. After sufficient rainfall from early spring until winter, this mound is covered by the saucy heads of white daisy-like flowers. The heads are about three-fourths inch across and have an outer row of 8-11 broad white ray-flowers. This is the most vigorous one of the blackfoot daisies and makes an excellent plant for the rock garden. It grows in Southwest Texas. The seeds are enclosed in a thickened cornucopia-like floral bract which has a flaring rim and many warty projections.