94 RESPECT PAID TO VERVAIN. 



be drier than those covered with herbage fit for the 

 scythe; yet, from some unknown cause, this oat- 

 grass seems less injured in this respect in grazing 

 grounds, than in those where the herbage is reserved 

 for mowing. 



The plain, simple, unadorned vervain (verbena 

 officinalis] is one of our most common, and de- 

 cidedly waste-loving plants. Disinclined to all 

 cultured places, it fixes its residence by way-sides, 

 and old stone quarries, thriving under the feet of 

 every passing creature. The celebrity that this 

 plant obtained in very remote times, without its 

 possessing one apparent quality, or presenting by 

 its manner of growth, or form, any mysterious cha- 

 racter to arrest the attention, or excite imagina- 

 tion, is very extraordinary, and perhaps unaccount- 

 able: most nations venerated, esteemed, and used 

 it ; the ancients had their Verbenalia, at which 

 period the temples and frequented places were 

 strewed and sanctified with vervain ; the beasts for 

 sacrifice, and the altars, were verbenated, the one 

 filleted, the other strewed, with the sacred herb ; 

 no incantation or lustration was perfect without the 

 aid of this plant. That mistletoe should have 

 excited attention in days of darkness and ignorance 

 is not a subject of surprise, from the extraordinary 

 and obscure manner of its growth and propagation, 

 and the season of the year in which it flourishes ; 

 for even the great Lord Bacon ridicules the idea of 

 its being propagated by the operations of a bird 

 as an " idle tradition," saying, that the sap which 



