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Rattlesnake-Weed. Hawkweed

Hieracium venosum. Composite Family.

Stem or Scape.--One or two feet high; naked or with a single leaf; slender; forking above . Leaves.--From the root; oblong; often making a sort of flat rosette; usually conspicuously veined with purple. Flower-heads.--Yellow; composed entirely of strap-shaped flowers.

The loosely clustered yellow flower-heads of the rattlesnakeweed somewhat resemble small dandelions. They abound in the pine-woods and dry, waste places of early summer. The purple-veined leaves, whose curious markings give to the plant its common name, grow close to the ground and are supposed to be efficacious in rattlesnake bites. Here again crops out the old "doctrine of signatures," for undoubtedly this virtue has been attributed to the species solely on account of the fancied resemblance between its leaves and the markings of the rattlesnake.

There are several other species of hawkweed (of which group the rattlesnake-weed is a member), most of which may be distinguished readily from the above by their leafy stems and unveined leaves.