322 The Weeds of a Garden. [Sess. 



stem there is a single row of hairs on different sides between 

 successive joints. The Water Chick weed {Montia fontana) 

 has white flowers so minute as to seem little more than 

 specks to the naked eye, but well worth the closest scrutiny 

 under a microscope. It is not, however, with the minute 

 structure of these plants that we are here dealing, but only 

 with a general rough survey of their frequency, and of their 

 powers of increasing and continuing their race. So we pass 

 on. And here is one of outstanding beauty, beloved of poets, 

 and of children who delight in making " Daisy Chains " : the 

 "flower, the little flower, with silver cup and golden eye" 

 of Montgomery ; the " wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r " of 

 our own national bard. This flower " blossoms everywhere " — 

 even " within the garden's cultured round it shares the sweet 

 carnation's bed " ; and " it wreathes the whole circle of the 

 year," thus earning its name " perennis," besides being 

 perennial, as distinguished from annual. The " go wan lea " 

 in early summer is a beautiful sight, but on a lawn daisies 

 are not reckoned an ornament, and much labour and expense 

 are often incurred in trying to free a lawn of daisies — no 

 easy task, however. From the lawn daisy seeds readily find 

 their way to adjoining flower-beds. 



Grasses cause some trouble. Poa annua comes up plenti- 

 fully on all the walks, as well as throughout the whole 

 garden. One year a great crop of Lolium perenne sprang up 

 among the strawberries, being introduced with the stable 

 manure applied to these plants. 



Mosses and Lichens are in strong evidence. Mosses — 

 Hypnums, Polytrichums, &c. — abound in the live edgings, of 

 which there are about six hundred yards, and on fruit bushes ; 

 on the latter, lichens in many cases clothe the whole of the 

 stems, to the great detriment of the bushes and of the crop 

 of fruit. There are a few " introduced " plants which may 

 be reckoned as weeds, on account of their powers of 

 spreading and becoming troublesome. Orange Hawkweed 

 (Hieracium aurantiacum) — fit only for the " wild garden," 

 as I have heard remarked — propagates itself fast and far in 

 edgings by means of its scions, besides seeding freely. Long 

 stretches of these edgings had to be cleared out and renewed 

 on that account. Yellow Toadflax {Linaria vulgaris) and 



