136 NATURE IN A CITY YARD 



besides those galls and swellings made by 

 stings of insects. Our smallest flowered 

 petunia put out a runner near ground ; and 

 as it had been planted near the stone walk, 

 the runner rambled out upon the flagg- 

 ing. Where the weight of it came upon the 

 stone, a callous tumor, or corn, was formed, 

 as large as the end joint of a man's thumb, 

 and studded with dwarfed or aborted leaves 

 so thick that they were like moss. Work- 

 ing among the sweet alyssum once, I turned 

 back a mass of long stalks, which flower 

 incessantly until the cold, to let in the light 

 on a patch of seeded earth ; and after thus 

 turning it several of the stems were found 

 to be thickened and enlarged where they 

 had rested on the ground. 



A white weed which we call the daisy, 

 the bellis being the English daisy, has like- 

 wise demeaned itself queerly. It is a plant 

 rescued from a dusty, vacant lot and made 

 to increase and improve. Turning back a 

 mat of its new growth, a sturdy shoot was 

 disclosed beneath it ; and this shoot, almost 

 a branch, terminated in a star of over thirty 

 young leaves, most of them on stalks a 





