126 With Feet to the Earth 



measures and certainties of June. It might 

 be improving to know what Artemis, or 

 Artemisia, had to do with it, and whether 

 the sponsor was the queen of Halicarnas- 

 sus, born B.C. 480, or the consort of Mauso- 

 lus of Caria, born one hundred and thirty 

 years later, or the goddess Artemis, who 

 never got herself born at all. " Coarse, 

 homely weeds" I find them called by 

 Gray, "the miserable ragweeds" by an- 

 other author ; yet a child suggests the 

 name of candelabra, " because they hold 

 their pretty green candles so straight." 

 Give a bad name to a plant or a dog, and 

 when it grows up it will not part from it. 

 Darlington says that " this worthless weed 

 occurs in most cultivated grounds, and is 

 usually abundant after a crop of wheat ; 

 but if the land be good the plant seems to 

 be smothered or choked out the next 

 season by the crop of clover and timothy. 

 It is always ready, however, like several 

 other coarse weeds, to make its appearance 

 whenever a grassy turf is broken up. The 

 curious anomaly of the flowers on the 

 terminal spikes being all pistillate is fre- 



