INTRODUCED PLANTS. 19 



of speculation as to the primal origin of several of the cultivated plants ; 

 while it is difficult, in many instances, to decide whether certain plants are 

 native in special districts or have been introduced at some remote period. 

 Some species follow man wherever he goes, like the plantain, and others 

 are carried by him as food, and have established themselves as firmly as 

 the native plants of the regions into which they have been introduced. 

 To establish the certainty of this introduction and fix its date therefore, are 

 points of interest, the more important as the period becomes more remote. 



There are few places which afford such an abundance and variety of 

 naturalized foreign plants as the vicinity of Boston. The number of plants 

 recorded in Dr. Gray's Manual of the Northern States, as being acclimated 

 in that region, is 2G0 out of 2351, or just one ninth of the whole. Of this 

 number more than one third are to be found more or less commonly around 

 Boston. The causes of this are the immigration of people of many nations 

 who have brought with them, in their apparel or luggage, the seeds of the 

 commoner plants of their own country, which would be likely to adhere to 

 them; seeds mingled with the grass seed imported here; and others 

 attached to the many articles of merchandise conjing constantly into the 

 country. 



Some of these have spread themselves so widely as to have become in- 

 tolerable pests to the agriculturist, who does not know, perhaps, that the 

 enemy he seeks to destroy is a foreign one. It is a singular fact, that 

 nearly all the weeds which have become the special curse of New England 

 farmers are introduced plants. Buttercups, the plaything of children, and 

 the overspreading plague of some grass regions, are from Europe. Some 

 localities in Maine are absolutely golden in the season of their flowering. 

 The Barben-y, which has so thoroughly established itself in this vicinity, is 

 European, and has not elsewhere taken such a hold. Celandine, which 

 fills our waste places with its delicate green leaves at the very beginning 

 of spring, and displays its pretty yellow blossoms later, with which children 

 anoint their warty fingers to rid them of their excrescences, is European. 

 The Water Cress, common in our markets in spring, the Hedge Mustard 

 which sends up its gaunt spikes of fruit so commonly by the roadsides, the 

 Shepherd's Purse, covering waste places everywhere with its early green, 

 the Wild Radish, which has become a very troublesome field weed, are all 

 European. Among the common and more or less troublesome usurpers of 

 the soil are St. John's Wort, Bladder Campion, Mouse-Ear Chickweed, 

 Purslane, Common Malloio, or cheeses as the children call them, nearly all 

 the Clovers, May Weed, and White Weed. This last is a thorough plague in 

 grass lands. Its strong roots kill out the grass and are difficult to extirpate. 

 Its origin here is differently explained. Some say it was introduced as a 

 pretty flower: others that it was brought over, like many others, with grass 

 seed or in luggage. In Europe it is a pet of the poets, and, under the 

 romantic names of Ox Eye Daisy and Marguerite, it has been celebrated 

 in verse. Here it is universally execrated as an intolerable pest. The 

 Canada l.\islle is not by any means a Canadian visitor. It comes from 

 Europe, and its legion of seeds have spread it broadcast over the land. 



