A BUNCH OF HERB 208 



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 poeta b 

 made so much, the larkspur, which is a pretty corn- 

 field weed, and the scarlet field-poppy, which Il«>v. 

 all summer, and is so taking amid the ripening 

 grain — have not immigrated to our shores. Like a 

 certain sweet rusticity and charm of European rural 

 life, they do not thrive readily under our Bki 

 Our fleabane has become a common roadside weed 

 in England, and a few other of our native I 

 known plants have gained a foothold in the Old 

 World. Our beautiful jewel-weed lias recently ap- 

 peared 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 cov- 

 eted its strong purple stalk for a cane, and the 

 robins eat its dark crimson-juiced berrii 



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, to 

 seems to have come over witli the Pilgrims, and is 

 most abundant in the older parts <»f the country. 

 It abounds throughout Europe and Asia, and had 

 its economic uses with the ancients. The Greeks 



