NATIVE WILD FLOWEKS 



exotic, having been introduced among foreign grasses and 

 thus become naturalized to the country. 



There seems to be really no special virtue in the plant; 

 though it boasts of a name which should entitle it to notice, 

 yet we are ignorant of its medicinal or healing uses. It is 

 destitute of any sweetness, but the blossoms are pretty and 

 associated with English meadows and green bowery lanes, 

 so we look kindly upon the purple-lipped flower for the dear 

 Old Country's sake. 



COMMON MULLEIN Verbascum Thapsus (L.). 



This plant is one of the tallest of our wayside weeds; the 

 large soft leaves, densely clothed with silky white hairs, are 

 not considered without value by the herb-doctors. They are 

 used in pulmonary disorders, as outward - applications for 

 healing purposes, and in such complaints as dysentery, to 

 allay pain; the leaves are made hot before the fire and so 

 laid over the body of the sufferer. Moreover, this wonderful 

 plant, if laid in cellars or granaries, is said to drive away 

 rats and mice; but this virtue may be only a fond delusion. 

 Commend me rather to Miss Pussy as a more certain exter- 

 minator of these troublesome household pests. A grand and 

 stately spike of golden flowers, called Giant-taper, grew m 

 my father's garden, and was the resort of honey-bees in- 

 numerable. Homely as our Canadian plant is considered to 

 be, yet it has uses of its own besides those attributed to 

 it by the old settlers. The abundance of the seeds, which 

 remain in the hard capsules during the winter, afford a 

 bountiful supply of food for the small birds that come to us, 

 early in Spring. In March, and early in April, the snow- 

 birds and their associates, the little chestnut-crowned 

 sparrows, 



" That come before the swallow dares," 



