c 



THE JlAirXirEED. H7 



regards ciilture, any soil will suit them, and if sown on a 

 sunny !jorder iu the month of Mareh, they will lake eai'e ot 

 themselves entirely; but it will be prudent to thin out the 

 lumps, for er(.>wded plants never pnisper. 



The yellow hawkweed appears to throw a light on the 

 origin of the name hawkweed, although its own botanieal 

 name of Ti'/jii^ has never Ijeen explained. The tl(jwer, with 

 its yellow rays and dark disc, may be likened to an e^'e, 

 and the eye of the hawk is proverbial for its keenness. 

 We have but to suppose the hawk resorted to this Hower to 

 sharpen his vision, and the explanation is seeured. To be 

 sure, a supposition is but a supposition. Eut that is just 

 the way the aneieuts made names for familiar things; they 

 had little philosophy, but plenty of fauey, and when reasi.m 

 did not guide, analogy deluded them. Al)out nine-tenths 

 of the aneieut names of animals and plants are foundrd on 

 the Himsiest of fancies. 



The larger kinds of wild hawkweeds are often mistaken 

 for tlandelions, but they differ in many respects, and they 

 Hower later, and are less gaud}' in their colouring. The 

 smaller kinds, such as the mouse-ear hawkweed, are neat 

 and ]iretty, but they do not attract notice as do such kinds 

 as the honey-wort hawkweed and the wall hawkweed. 

 Tliese are so abundant on dry banks and ruins and heathy 

 spots in the later days of summer, as to make a fair 

 seml>lance of Mower-beds in many waste places. They 

 congregate on gravelly soils, as the poppies do in the 

 corntields, and contribute greatly to the enjoyment of the 

 wandering botanist. As compared with the dandelion 

 [Leoiitoiloii, iard.racvm), the "sunflower of the s))ring," 

 thev lack its splendoui-, and are less conspicuous. Never- 

 theless the lines of Lowell on the earlier and more familiar 



