BURS AND BEGGAR' S-TICKS. 



69 



me as more than " stickers." I have discovered an old friend 

 among them. Withered and brown, I should scarcely have recog- 

 nized the friend of my springtime rambles but for a certain odor of 

 the roots and a sprig of young green leaves by the side of the old, 

 dry stalk. It all comes back now — sweet cicely of the spring woods 

 with its umbels of white blossoms and that sweet, aniselike smell 

 of its roots. To discover an old friend in a strange guise is enough 

 in itself to whet one's interest, and I have curiosity to know how 

 sweet cicely fares in the undertime of the year. All through the 

 woods I find the dry, leafless stalks of the plant adorned with slender, 

 black seed-pods that cling in pairs to the delicate pedicels of the 

 umbel clusters. Under a mag- 

 nifying lens each pod reveals 

 a structure of wonderful de- 

 sign, the sole purpose of 

 which is to fasten on to any 

 object that may brush past. 

 To this intent it is furnished 

 with delicate hooks, arranged 

 in parallel lines along its 

 sides, lying close against the 

 pod and pointing back from 

 its free end. The free end 

 of the pod tapers into a slen- 

 der style armed with the 

 same hooklike structures, so 

 that whatever part is touched 

 it will be sure to cling fast. 



Another umbelwort, the 

 fruit of which catches on to 

 the clothes in our autumn 

 woodland walks, is sanicle 

 or black snakeroot. We 

 come upon it in the undergrowth of hillsides and in the dry woods 

 of the uplands with its small, brown burs bunched in clusters on 

 the ends of the branching stem. It grows scarcely higher than 

 one's knees, and in the tangled mass of brown and green is often 

 passed unnoticed. Each little bur presents an array of minute 

 hooked bristles, set closely together, and forming a most effective 

 means for attachment to the hairy covering of animals. 



The various species of Desmodium, or tick trefoil of the pulse 

 tribe, are among the most persistent " stickers " of the October 

 woods. The flattened, several-lobed pods are more familiar to us 

 as clinging in detached lobes to our clothes after coming out of the 



Snre*c Cicely ■ 



