230 A BUNCH OF HERBS. 



rare, and seldom or never invade cultivated fields, 

 being found mostly in wet and rocky waste places 

 Of Old World origin, too, is the curled leaf -dock (Ru 

 mex crispus) that is so annoying about one's garden 

 and home meadows, its long tapering root clinging to 

 the soil with such tenacity that I have pulled upon it 

 till I could see stars without budging it ; it has more 

 lives than a cat, making a shift to live when pulled 

 up and laid on top of the ground in the burning 

 summer sun. Our native docks are mostly found in 

 swamps, or near them, and are harmless. 



Purslane, commonly called " pusley," and which 

 has given rise to the saying " as mean as pusley " 

 of course is not American. A good sample of our 

 native purslane is the Claytonia, or spring beauty, a 

 shy, delicate plant that opens its rose-colored flowers 

 in the moist sunny places in the woods or along their 

 borders so early in the season. 



There are few more obnoxious weeds in cultivated 

 ground than sheep-sorrel, also an Old World plant, 

 while our native wood-sorrel, with its white, deli- 

 cately veined flowers, or the ^variety with yellow 

 flowers, is quite harmless. The same is true of the 

 mallow, the vetch, or tare, and other plants. We 

 have no native plant so indestructible as garden or- 

 pine, or live-forever, which our grandmothers nursed 

 and for which they are cursed by many a farmer. 

 The fat, tender succulent door-yard stripling turned 

 out to be a monster that would devour the earth. I 

 have seen acres of meadow land destroyed by it. 



