A Handful of Weeds 361 



upon a time served as a lure to the insects whose 

 services are now dispensed with. 



This " degeneration," as it is regarded by natur- 

 alists, is a sad result to follow upon untold years 

 spent in our society. For the plantain is a " weed 

 of civilization " which, from time out of mind, has 

 sought human society and that of the best. So 

 persistently does it haunt the track of man that 

 one of its old popular names is " waybread." 



This fondness of the plant for the edges of paths 

 and roads has given rise to a German story that 

 it was once a maiden, who, while watching by the 

 wayside for her lover, was transformed into a weed 

 by cruel magic ; yet constant through all changes, 

 she watches by the wayside still. 



The North American Indians call the plantain 

 11 the print of the white man's foot." Longfellow 

 alludes to this in those lines of " Hiawatha" which 

 describe the coming of Europeans into the wild 

 lands of the western world: 



" Where so'ere they tread, beneath them 

 Springs a flower unknown among us, 

 Springs the ' White Man's Foot ' in blossom." 



Has it followed us westward and ever westward 

 out of that mysterious land of the morning where 

 human life began? Its origin, like that of its sister 



