PEPACTON 



pie-red bloom in middle and late summer affording 

 a welcome relief to the traveler's eye. It also be- 

 longs to the class of beautiful weeds. It grows rank 

 and tall, in dense communities, and always pre- 

 sents to the eye a generous mass of color. In places, 

 the marshes and creek banks are all aglow with it, its 

 wand-like spikes of flowers shooting up and uniting 

 in volumes or pyramids of still flame. Its petals, 

 when examined closely, present a curious wrinkled 

 or crumpled appearance, like newly washed linen ; 

 but when massed, the effect is eminently pleasing. 

 It also came from abroad, probably first brought 

 to this country as a garden or ornamental plant. 



As a curious illustration of how weeds are carried 

 from one end of the earth to the other, Sir Joseph 

 Hooker relates this circumstance : " On one occa- 

 sion," he says, "landing on a small uninhabited 

 island nearly at the Antipodes, the first evidence 

 I met with of its having been previously visited by 

 man was the English chickweed ; and this I traced 

 to a mound that marked the grave of a British 

 sailor, and that was covered with the plant, doubt- 

 less the offspring of seed that had adhered to the 

 spade or mattock with which the grave had been 

 dug." 



Ours is a weedy country because it is a roomy 



country. Weeds love a wide margin, and they find 



it here. You shall see more weeds in one day's 



travel in this country than in a week's journey in 



218 



