A BUNCH OF HERBS 



given Europe the vilest of all weeds, a parasite that 

 sucks up human blood, tobacco. Now if they catch 

 the Colorado beetle of us, it will go far toward pay- 

 ing them off for the rats and the mice, and for other 

 pests in our houses. 



The more attractive and pretty of the British 

 weeds as the common daisy, of which the poets 

 have made so much, the larkspur, which is a pretty 

 cornfield weed, and the scarlet field-poppy, which 

 flowers all summer, and is so taking amid the rip- 

 ening grain have not immigrated to our shores. 

 Like a certain sweet rusticity and charm of Euro- 

 pean rural life, they do not thrive readily under our 

 skies. Our fleabane has become a common road- 

 side weed in England, and a few other of our native 

 less known plants have gained a foothold in the 

 Old World. Our beautiful jewel-weed has recently 

 appeared along certain of the English rivers. 



Pokeweed is a native American, and what a lusty, 

 royal plant it is! It never invades cultivated fields, 

 but hovers about the borders and looks over the 

 fences like a painted Indian sachem. Thoreau 

 coveted its strong purple stalk for a cane, and the 

 robins eat its dark crimson- juiced berries. 



It is commonly believed that the mullein is in- 

 digenous to this country, for have we not heard 

 that it is cultivated in European gardens, and chris- 

 tened the American velvet plant ? Yet it, too, seems 

 to have come over with the Pilgrims, and is most 

 223 



