A BUNCH OF HERBS 



is indigenous to this country, for have we 

 not heard that it is cultivated in European 

 gardens, and christened the American vel- 

 vet plant ? Yet it, too, seems to have come 

 over with the Pilgrims, and is most abundant 

 in the older parts of the country. It abounds 

 throughout Europe and Asia, and had its 

 economic uses with the ancients. The 

 Greeks made lamp-wicks of its dried leaves, 

 and the Romans dipped its dried stalk in 

 tallow for funeral torches. It affects dry 

 uplands in this country, and, as it takes 

 two years to mature, it is not a troublesome 

 weed in cultivated crops. The first year it 

 sits low upon the ground in its coarse flan- 

 nel leaves, and makes ready ; if the plow 

 comes along now, its career is ended. The 

 second season it starts upward its tall stalk, 

 which in late summer is thickly set with 

 small yellow flowers, and in fall is charged 

 with myriads of fine black seeds. " As full 

 as a dry mullein stalk of seeds " is almost 

 equivalent to saying "as numerous as the 

 sands upon the seashore." 



Perhaps the most notable thing about the 

 weeds that have come to us from the Old 

 World, when compared with our native spe- 

 cies, is their persistence, not to say pug- 

 149 



