90 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



become quite gay as the thatch grows old and somewhat 

 furrowed, as there thus becomes a holding-ground and the 

 necessary dampness for the propagation of various seeds 

 that find their way there. How they ever manage to do it 

 is a puzzle. The seeds of the willow-herb, being light and 

 feathery, will find their way anywhere, like those of the 

 thistles, hawk-weeds, and groundsel ; but we remember 

 this summer often noticing one particular roof on which, 

 besides the plants we have mentioned, and grasses, and 

 many other things, there were handfuls of poppies and 

 several sturdy wheat-plants. Possibly, an ear or two of 

 wheat may have been retained in the straw after thatch- 

 ing, though in that case we should imagine they would 

 have thrown up their delicate green blades the following 

 season, and would not have waited till lapse of years had 

 made re-thatching one of the immediate questions of the 

 future. And how, in any case, did the poppy-seeds find 

 their way there ? The same thing often strikes one in the 

 case of the grand flower-borders that often fringe the sum- 

 mits of the walls of old ruined abbeys and other buildings. 

 In a place that seems inaccessible, and where no foothold 

 seems possible, we may see the wild rose throwing out 

 branches a couple of yards long, and elders with stems 

 as thick as a man's wrist, to say nothing of ox-eye daisies, 

 stone-crop, corn-marigolds, poppies, ivy-leaved toad-flax, 

 snapdragon, wall- flowers, and many another gay adornment 

 of the old flint walls, all thriving where the nourishment 

 is of the scantiest, the drought the most searching, the 

 wind the keenest. 



The small willow-herb is a great pest when found in cul- 

 tivated ground, and when it is once fairly established in a 

 garden, it seems to be impossible to eradicate it. It has two 



