THISTLEDOWH BLOWS. 145 



the seeds in a somewhat different manner, by clinging 

 to the legs of animals ; and it is a significant fact that 

 the burdocks are most essentially wayside weeds of the 

 waste places in cultivated lands. But in its own particu- 

 lar group that is to say, among the purple central com- 

 posites the creeping thistle in the Home Close is cer- 

 tainly the highest existing product of vegetable evolu- 

 tion ; and that is what makes me bestow upon it, after 

 all, a certain extorted meed of grudging admiration. It 

 lays itself out to be troublesome, and it succeeds to per- 

 fection. 



