COMMON PLANTAIN 



will dwell there by preference. It came into this 



country with the early settlers, and was called by the 



Indians, The White Man's Foot. 



A Scandinavian legend makes the 



plant the spirit of a maiden who 



sits waiting by the roadside for her 



faithless lover who never comes. 



The plant also bears the name Bird 



Plantain because canary-birds are 



fond of it. 

 Like so many successful weeds, 



the Plantain forms a rosette of 



leaves thus pre-empting a certain 



amount of soil space for itself. 

 From the centre of this 

 rosette there come up a 

 few naked scapes, bear- 

 ing at their summit 

 dense spikes of tiny 

 four-parted blossoms 

 whose pale and faded 

 petals lie flat against 

 the calyx. Before the corolla opens, the 

 pistil matures and pushes out its style 

 and stigma in order to get any disengaged 

 pollen that is in the neighborhood. After 

 the pistil has withered the corolla opens, 

 the anthers mature and dangle out on 

 cobwebby filaments, so as to scatter their 

 pollen to the winds. 



The lower florets of the spike open first; 

 if we pick a half-blown spike, we find all the pistils are 

 ripe above, all the stamens ripe below. Were the order 



209 



Common Plantain. 



Plantago major 



Ribbed Plan- 

 tain. Plantago 

 lanceolata 



