family (Polygonum aviculare) and is grayish-green as much 

 in stem as in leaf. It bears insignificant blooms of whitish- 

 pink close to the prostate stem. This plant becomes the 

 more plentiful the more you approach human habitation and 

 is in its glory if trampled under foot. More than that even, 

 it will do best when in a dusty road where driven over, day 

 after day, by wagon wheels. I recollect stopping over, the 

 eve before I reached the Calaveras Grove of Big Trees in 

 the Sierra Nevada range, in an offing along the roadside at 

 an elevation of about 4,500 feet. Even if I had not found 

 scantlings and pieces of boards along the gulch and tumbled 

 down cabins under the shelter of trees, the lawn of this 

 Polygonum weed, as it spread closely to the ground all over 

 the knoll, would have told me that man had a place of abode 

 at this spot. Further investigation did show even more. 

 Here where people had left the range and no more teams 

 traveled and no foot pressed down the sod, the plants were 

 smaller and half erect. And as it is there, so it is near your 

 front door. The further your Polygonum weed is removed from 

 the roadside, the more erect it becomes, even if in a place 

 entirely free from other herbs. And wherever you trace 

 this weed in other positions where the surroundings may 

 appear to be in contradiction to what I explain, show patience 

 and await development. Remember, that unlike seasons pro- 

 duce varying results and that it is far different for a plant, 

 especially a weed, to grow in a place, than to be naturalized in 

 that particular spot. 



These examples have presented relations of plants to 

 human kind. I beg leave to illustrate an instance where 



17 



