iron-weed

Every angle of the rail fences became a parterre with golden-rod, cat-brier, and the red-and-yellow pied leaves of blackberries, while a fringe of purple and white asters thrust fragile fingers through the rails below, or the stout iron-weed pushed its purple-red blooms into view at the head of tall, lance-like stems.

Judith of the Cumberlands Alice MacGowan

The weeds commonly called redroot or iron-weed are very good for this.

Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium Jessie Hubbell Bancroft

Lilies and the flower-de-luce sprang up in the place of reeds; smilax and poison-oak gave way to the purple-plumed iron-weed and pink spiderwort; the bindweeds ran everywhere blooming as they ran, and on one of the dead cypresses a giant creeper hung its green burden of foliage and lifted its scarlet trumpets.

Southern Prose and Poetry for Schools 1910

From a thicket of iron-weed at the foot of this slope was thrust the hard, lean visage of an undersized girl of fourteen.

The Gentleman from Indiana Booth Tarkington 1907

The white - ruffed fennel reached up its dusty yellow heads to touch her skirts as she passed, and then drooped, satisfied, against the purple iron-weed at the roadside.

The Gentleman from Indiana Booth Tarkington 1907

All down the brown roads white lady's-lace and yarrow and the stiff purple iron-weed have leaped into bloom; under its faded green coat the sugar-cane shows purple; and sumac and sassafras and gums are afire.

Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man Marie Conway Oemler 1905

Emerson says a weed is a plant whose virtues we have not yet discovered; but surely it is no small virtue in the iron-weed to brighten the roadsides and low meadows throughout the summer with bright clusters of bloom.

Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Neltje Blanchan 1891

The iron-weed had given up his purple crown, and yellow wheat, silver-gray oats, and rippling barley had fled at the sight of his banner to the open sunny spaces as though to make their last stand an indignant appeal that all might see.

The Heart of the Hills John Fox 1891

Lilies and the flower-de-luce sprang up in the place of reeds; smilax and poison-oak gave way to the purple-plumed iron-weed and pink spiderwort; the bindweeds ran everywhere blooming as they ran, and on one of the dead cypresses a giant creeper hung its green burden of foliage and lifted its scarlet trumpets.

Old Creole Days 1879

Since then the goldenrod has passed from glory to glory, first mixing its yellow-powdered plumes with the red-purple tufts of the iron-weed, and then with the wild asters everywhere.

Literature and Life (Complete) William Dean Howells 1878