THE RIBWORT OR PLANTAIN FAMILY 137 



iawns may be weeded out when the soil is firm by forcing a small 

 implement like a chisel, with a half-round blade having a point 

 like the tip of a spoon, between the soil and the fleshy crown 

 of the weed to a depth sufficient to break the plant away from 

 its fibrous roots without disfiguring the turf. A teaspoonful of 

 salt applied to the crown of small plants in hot dry weather 

 will kill them without seriously injuring the grass. 



ALLIED SPECIES: Pale Plantain (Plantago Rugelii Dene.) 

 often occurs with Common Plantain. It is a rather larger plant 

 with more erect, smooth leaves, of a paler or yellowish green, 

 the leaf-stalks purple at the base. The spikes are longer and 

 the flowers less crowded, the capsules more pointed, 4 to 9-seeded, 

 opening below the middle. 



The seed (Plate 75, fig. 69) is of the same angular shape 

 as that of the Common Plantain, but about twice as large and 

 nearly black, with the surface merely roughened, not lined and 

 netted. It is common in timothy and alsike seed. 



Romeo. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that, 

 envolio. For what, I pray thee? 

 Romeo. For your broken shin. 



Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Sc. ii, 1591. 



For the knowledge of herbes, trees, and shrubbes is not onelye very delectable for 

 a Princes minde but profitable for all the bodies of the Princes hole realme both to pre- 

 serve men from sickness, sorrowe, and pajme that cometh thereby. 



William Turner, Herbal, 1568. 



It is needless to go about to compute the value of the damage weeds do, since all 

 experienced husbandmen know it to be very great, and would unanimously agree to ex- 

 tirpate their whole race as entirely as in England they have done the wolves, though 

 much more innocent and less rapacious than weeds. 



Jethro Tull, The Horse Hoeing Husbandry, 1731. 



