266 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Bupposition, however, is doubted by g-ood authority, for the horse 

 is remarkable for the care and skill with which it selects its food. 



Order 20. PLANTAINS — PLANTAGiNACEiE. Mostly acaulescent 

 herbs, with no important properties. 



74. Common Plantain — Way-Bread — Ribwoiit — Plantago Major. Perennial. Stem 

 none. Leaves three to eight inches long, strongly nerved or ribbed smooth. Scape one 

 to two feet high. Flowers in a long slender spike, greenish white. 



This naturalized foreigner abounds wherever civilized man has 

 settled, growing along his footpaths and around his dwellings. 

 It is also very apt to spread and become very troublesome in grass 

 fields. Vast numbers of the seeds are devoured by small birds. 

 The bruised leaves are much used for dressing sores and blisters, 

 like that produced by 2^oison ivy. Plantago lanceolata, rib-grass, 

 has long narrow leaves, and is quite common in grass fields and 

 pastures. This species is frequently allowed to grow and even 

 encouraged as a forage plant ; but this is by no means profitable. 

 They may both be eradicated by cutting off the root beneath the 

 surface, or by a rotation of crops. 



Order 21. FIGWORTS — Scrofulariace.e, A large family, 

 numbering about 1800 species, very generally distributed through- 

 out the world, " from the equator to the regions of perpetual 

 frost.'' The snap dragon, musk plant, and fox-glove, with many 

 others, are cultivated in gardens. We have three species notice- 

 able as weeds. 



75. Common Mullein — Verhascum Thapsus. A well-known plant 

 with a stout, woolly stem, and yellow flowers, in a long dense 

 spike. The plant is annual, and spreads only by seed. It is often 

 very abundant in dry pastures and bj' the roadside. It is some- 

 times seen in the grass fields of careless farmers. It can only be 

 kept in subjection by a careful eradication while young. " If 

 neglected, the soil becomes so full of seeds that the young plants 

 will be found springing up in great numbers, for a long succession 

 of years." — Darlington. 



76. Toad Flax — Butter-and-Egqs — Ramsted — Linaria vulgaris. Perennial Stem 

 one to three feet high, very leafy, with numerous short branches. Flowers in a dense 

 raceme, yellow, with the pulato of the lower lip bright orange color, furnished with a 

 long tail or spur. 



A showy but pernicious plant, originally from Europe, common 

 in old fields and by the wayside, escaped from cultivation. Cattle, . 



