A BUNCH OF HERBS 193 



A large number of odorless plants yield pollen to 

 the bee. There is nectar in the columbine, and the 

 bumblebee sometimes gets it by piercing the spur 

 from the outside as she does with dicentra. There 

 ought to be honey in the honeysuckle, but I have 

 never seen the hive-bee make any attempt to get it. 



WEEDS 



One is tempted to say that the most human 

 plants, after all, are the weeds. How they cling 

 to man and follow him around the world, and 

 spring up wherever he sets his foot! How they 

 crowd around his barns and dwellings, and throng 

 his garden and jostle and override each other in 

 their strife to be near him ! Some of them are so 

 domestic and familiar, and so harmless withal, that 

 one comes to regard them with positive affection. 

 Motherwort, catnip, plantain, tansy, wild mustard, — 

 what a homely human look they have! they are an 

 integral part of every old homestead. Your smart 

 new place will wait long before they draw near it. 

 Or knot-grass, that carpets every old dooryard, and 

 fringes every walk, and softens every path that 

 knows the feet of children, or that leads to the 

 spring, or to the garden, or to the barn, how kindly 

 one comes to look upon it! Examine it with a 

 pocket glass and see how wonderfully beautiful and 

 exquisite are its tiny blossoms. It loves the human 

 foot, and when the path or the place is long disused 

 other plants usurp the ground. 



The gardener and the farmer are ostensibly the 



