206 THE RING OF NATURE 



veronicas, and so many of them grow in our country 

 that we may reasonably claim that they are in- 

 digenous. 



Chickweed, the greatest wanderer of them all, 

 has had its claims investigated and has been 

 declared to be of British origin. It belongs to a 

 large genus, Stellar ia (of a large tribe, the carnation 

 tribe), of which so many members are at home 

 in our country that it must be regarded as the 

 headquarters. Pimpernel, on the other hand, has 

 so lonely a position in the British flora that it may 

 well have been an immigrant a few thousand 

 years ago in some sample of foreign wheat. 



Most people know well the odd little perfoliate 

 weed called Claytonia, to which we have so far 

 refused to accord the honour of a familiar name. 

 Its general make-up proclaims it to be an alien, 

 and its advent into this country was well within 

 historic time. 



In many corn-fields, notably in Norfolk and the 

 Isle of Wight, a conspicuous and handsome weed 

 appears in great numbers. It is the purple cow- 

 wheat, Melanpyrum arvense, the latter name, which 

 belongs to many species, being given to signify 

 that it is a weed of cultivation. The blossom 

 itself is pink, yellow, and red, and the bracts add 

 to the scheme of colour by appearing in rosy 

 pink instead of green. It has the advantage of 

 producing seeds of the same size as the wheat, 

 with which they get cast into the bags at threshing 

 time and are thus sown again upon the land. 



