SMALL PLANTAIN 



Plantago vitginica L. 



May - June Some of the plantains were here when Co- 



Lawns, sandy uplands lumbus landed on New World shores; others 



came afterward and soon grew abundantly. 

 Where the white man traveled and set up his lodging, plantains sprang 

 up next year. White-man's foot, the Indians called them, those small 

 persistent weeds which they never had seen before. Wherever the white 

 man cut the woods and broke out roads, wherever he pastured his stock 

 or laid out his fields and gardens, there, in another year or so, were 

 }jlantains growing. They seeded themselves, made deep, persistent roots 

 which could send u]) new plants if the leaves were sheared off down to 

 the ground. It took a lot to destroy the European plantains and as a 

 result they have long since encompassed the country. 



One whieli is very common over most of America is the whip-lash 

 English plantain (Plantago kinceoJata) which grows in grassy places 

 and in sandy roadsides. It has a l)asal rosette of long, narrow leaves from 

 wliich rise many long, strong, slender stalks each topped with a narrow 

 head of creamy-yellowish stamens. For a little while it is a gi'aceful, 

 interesting flower-head which seeds itself abundantly. 



One of the native American plantains is the less obtrusive small 

 plantain. In sandy places the small oval, haiiy leaves stand up with a 

 densely hairy little flower spike. This tenninates in a narrow spike of 

 stameny flowers. It is always a small. comi)act plant apparently without 

 the ability to multiply tremendously as the European plantains seem to 

 do. In consecjuence it is much less common — a compact little green plant 

 M'hich most people tread underfoot without even noticing what is there. 



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