may die of want of proper condition, as it is called, of home- 

 sickness, as I dare put it. Remember, it is firmly bedded 

 where men placed it, not in a position of its own choosing. 

 Has it ever struck you why so many annuals have to be sown 

 and re-sown only to disappear as the new season opens? 

 You may offer dozens of reasons, all of which may prove 

 correct. But let me add one, the importance of which has not 

 appealed to everybody : the seed was sown where it could 

 not naturalize. I will illustrate by a few instances why 

 plant-life offers such attraction to the scientist and such 

 infatuation to the poet. 



The common dandelion has traced civilization wherever 

 it penetrated unexplored regions. We call it a weed, scientists 

 term it a cosmopolitan and permit it to upset all the rules of 

 plant geography. May I put the question : why does this 

 dandelion follow the step of man wherever he goes? 



Along the path from my home to the village grow tufts 

 and tufts of a plant very similar to dandelion (Agoseris). 

 I leave my home at an hour when the sun has risen just above 

 the tops of the pines and gum-trees overshadowing the path. 

 Why is it these dandelions all look into my face at this morn- 

 ing hour? Is it because I stand with the rise of the sun and 

 they have turned their golden faces to greet its glory? But 

 more than that. Why is it that on cloudy days this sea of 

 faces is gone, as it were, and I have to walk amongst them 

 to be able to greet them? 



Let me select another everyday companion of ours for 

 illustration. Along the roadsides grows a flattened weed 

 of unpretending appearance. It belongs to the buckwheat 



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