i 7 4 FLOWERS OF WASTE PLACES, ETC. 



cetty, Sanguinary, Shepherd's Bag, Shepherd's Pouch, Shepherd's 

 Scrip, Tooth -wort, Toy wort, Ward-seed, Witches' Pouches. Pick 

 Purse, &c., is given in allusion to the poorness of land. It was called 

 Sanguinary because supposed to stanch a bleeding nose. Shepherd's 

 Pouch alludes to the shape of the seed-vessel, as does Shepherd's 

 Purse. 



In the Eastern Border children play a game with the seed-pouch, 

 one holding it out to a companion and telling him to take hold of it. 

 It cracks, and the other triumphantly says, "You've broken your 

 Mother's heart ". The seeds are collected, and are given to birds. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



35. Capsella Bursa-pastoris, Medic. Stem erect, branched above, 

 lower leaves pinnatifid, lanceolate, dentate, upper auricled, oblong, or 

 sagittate at the base, flowers small, white, pouch triangular, obcordate, 

 2-valved, variable. 



Mouse-ear Chickweed (Cerastiutn vulgatum, L.) 



This plant has not been found fossil so far. It is distributed to-day 

 throughout Europe from the Arctic circle, southwards, in N. and W. 

 Asia, to Spitzbergen, the Himalayas, and N. Africa, and has been 

 introduced into the United States. Common Mouse-ear occurs in 

 every county of Great Britain, ascending to 3600 ft. in Scotland. 



The Common Mouse-ear is inconspicuous enough, and on account 

 of its similarity to other stitchworts, not so widely known as its distri- 

 bution should require. It is almost everywhere a plant of the waste 

 places, growing on open ground where the surface has been disturbed, 

 not only in gardens, and around houses, farmyards, and kindred spots 

 where weeds of cultivation accumulate, but in the fields and along the 

 wayside also. It is associated often with the 3-nerved Sandwort and 

 Common Stitchwort, or Chickweed under the hedge, and is a shade 

 plant. 



This is a short, straggling plant, with many spreading stems, round 

 and purple. Some of the barren shoots are long. The stem is downy, 

 and often prostrate, then ascending. The leaves are roughly hairy, 

 and oblong below, narrow below; the upper are oval with rolled-back 

 edges. 



The flowers are white, the petals as Icng as the calyx, and both 

 sepals and bracts are membranous at the margin. The capsule is 

 cylindrical, the fruit-stalk as long as the calyx, the sepals of which are 

 turned back in flower, and the primary bracts are not membranous. 



