CORNFLOWER, OR CORN BLUE-BOTTLE. 51 



their breadth ; like the stems, they are covered with more 

 or less of the white cobwebby down that gives the whole 

 plant a somewhat dull and grey appearance. The lower 

 leaves are much broader and blunter-looking than the upper, 

 and often have a roughly-toothed or jagged outline, a 

 feature which we do not find in the leaves that, from their 

 higher position on the plant, more readily attract notice. 



Though the brilliancy of its flowers makes it an 

 attractive plant to the lover of natural beauty, the farmer 

 regards the corn-flower as a pernicious weed to be carefully 

 eradicated at sight ; and the reapers bear it no goodwill, for 

 its tough stems blunt their sickles ; hence by many old 

 writers the plant is called the " hurt-sickle." On this point 

 the poet discourses feelingly, in the following scathing 

 lines : 



" Blue-bottle, tliee my numbers fain would raise, 

 And thy complexion challenges my praise ; 

 Thy countenance, like summer skies, is fair ; 

 But, ah ! how different thy vile manners are. 

 Ceres for this excludes thee from my song, 

 And swains, to gods and me a sacred throng. 

 A treach'rous guest, destruction thou dost bring 

 To th' inhospitable field where thou dost spring. 

 Thou blunt'st the very reaper's sickle, and so 

 In life and death becom'st the farmer's foe." 



The corn-flower would appear to injure the farmer not 

 only materially, but morally, for its presence convicts him 

 of negligence, and holds him up to public gaze for his want 

 of energy. Holditch, an old writer, in his " Essay on 

 Weeds/' includes this plant in his denunciation of the 

 poppy, the May-weed, and the marigold, and says : " The 

 above class, with their gaudy colours, proclaim bad farming 

 to the landlord, the tenant, and the passenger, and announce 

 the neglect of using clean seed-cern, judicious fallowing, 



