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Stores which so far will honor the club's credit cards are Chez Dreyfus and the Treeland Flower Shop in Cambridge; Simon and Sons Clothiers in Boston; Jack Williams Magic Gardens in Fresh Pond; Monticello Rest on Route 9; Robin Hood's Ten Acres on Route 20; and the Beacon Liquor Corporation in Brighton...
...past). Occasionally, as it does this week, the fascinating news in science comes under agriculture. Now quarantined in the Carolinas is a pesky parasite called Striga asiatica, or witchweed, that could cause more trouble than Asian flu and ruin crops from Virginia to Texas. See SCIENCE, Little Red Flower...
Farmers in 16 counties of North and South Carolina were anxiously watching their fields last week for a delicate, bright green plant that grows to be nine or ten inches high. It is a pretty plant, with gay red and orange flowers shaped something like violets. In South Africa, where it abounds, Boer farmers call it rooibloemetjie (little red flower) and vuurbossie (firebrand). In the U.S. it is witchweed (Striga asiatica), a parasitic plant that sucks the life sap of corn, sorghum, sugar cane and many other crops, leaving the plants as rustling ghosts while the little red flowers bloom...
...knows how the little red flower came to the Carolinas, but when the U.S. Department of Agriculture heard the news, it went into action, sending a task force of scientists to help the local authorities. A quick look at the literature told the scientists that Striga asiatica is one of the world's worst pests. Serious infestation can reduce corn yield to zero. Eradication is almost impossible...
...infestation, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture has a bolder hope. If it can identify the root secretion that makes the seeds germinate, it may find a cheap chemical that will do the same. Then a field can be treated before planting, and the seeds of the little red flower will wake up only...