A YEAR IN THE FIELDS 



of each cup three buds appear that never 

 expand into flowers ; but when the top of 

 the stalk is reached, one and sometimes 

 two buds open a large, delicate purple-blue 

 corolla. All the first-born of this plant are 

 still-born, as it were ; only the latest, which 

 spring from its summit, attain to perfect 

 bloom. A weed which one ruthlessly de- 

 molishes when he finds it hiding from the 

 plow amid the strawberries, or under the 

 currant-bushes and grapevines, is the dan- 

 delion ; yet who would banish it from the 

 meadows or the lawns, where it copies in 

 gold upon the green expanse the stars of 

 the midnight sky ? After its first blooming 

 comes its second and finer and more spiritual 

 inflorescence, when its stalk, dropping its 

 more earthly and carnal flower, shoots up- 

 ward, and is presently crowned by a globe 

 of the most delicate and aerial texture. It 

 is like the poet's dream, which succeeds 

 his rank and golden youth. This globe is 

 a fleet of a hundred fairy balloons, each one 

 of which bears a seed which it is destined 

 to drop far from the parent source. 



Most weeds have their uses ; they are 

 not wholly malevolent. Emerson says a 

 weed is a plant whose virtues we have not 



156 



