A BUNCH OF HERBS 209 



leaves are shell-shaped, and clasp the stalk so as to 

 form little shallow cups. In the bottom of each 

 cup three buds appear that never expand into flow- 

 ers; but when the top of the stalk is reached, one 

 and sometimes two buds open a large, delicate pur- 

 ple-blue corolla. All the first-born of this plant 

 are still-born, as it were; only the latest, which 

 spring from its summit, attain to perfect bloom. 

 A weed which one ruthlessly demolishes when he 

 finds it hiding from the plow amid the strawberries, 

 or under the currant-bushes and grapevines, is the 

 dandelion ; yet who would banish it from the mead- 

 ows or the lawns, where it copies in gold upon the 

 green expanse the stars of the midnight sky 1 After 

 its first blooming comes its second and finer and 

 more spiritual inflorescence, when its stalk, drop- 

 ping its more earthly and carnal flower, shoots 

 upward, and is presently crowned by a globe of the 

 most delicate and aerial texture. It is like the 

 poet's dream, which succeeds his rank and golden 

 youth. This globe is a fleet of a hundred fairy 

 balloons, each one of which bears a seed which it 

 is destined to drop far from the parent source. 



Most weeds have their uses ; they are not wholly 

 malevolent. Emerson says a weed is a plant whose 

 virtues we have not yet discovered; but the wild 

 creatures discover their virtues if we do not. The 

 bumblebee has discovered that the hateful toad- 

 flax, which nothing will eat, and which in some 

 soils will run out the grass, has honey at its heart. 

 Narrow-leaved plantain is readily eaten by cattle, 



