aoe 
os y2—r 5D 
Nae 
IMullein, 
Derbascum thapsus. Natura Orver: Scrophulariacee—Figwort Family. 
A -ERBASCUM, or Mullein, is a common wayside plant, that 
+,we will dignify with a place in this volume as a slight 
> recompense for the abuse it has ever, and will ever, receive. 
Condemned as a weed, considered as evidence of an untidy 
© landholder wherever it is seen occupying the fields, its stately 
. stalk a target for every roadside rambler’s stick, it has at least 
“some virtues, and less vice than it generally obtains credit for, and 
67 as: 3 shall receive a tribute for the memory of childhood, when we remem- 
f Ws ber seeing its golden blossoms so far above our head. ‘The whole 
Plant presents a gray appearance, from the dense woolly texture that 
covers its leaves and stalk. It is said to have been used in ancient 
gece 
et times as wicks for lamps, or was placed in small vessels of oil, and one 
end lighted, the oil continually creeping up its dense surface, supplying the flame 
with fuel; and many a country lassie has been indebted for her rosy cheeks to a 
pilfered leaf, whose rough surface she has furtively applied to her smooth skin. 
The plant has several medicinal properties, being demulcent, anti-spasmodic, and 
useful as an anodyne. The German name is wollkraut, signifying wool-plant. 
Good Haturg, 
OOD humor only teaches charms to last, 
Still makes new conquests, and maintains the past. 
—Pope. 
E keeps his temper’d mind serene and pure, SWEETER and a lovelier gentleman, 
And ey’ry passion aptly harmonized, Framed in the prodigality of nature, 
Amid a jarring world. —Thompson. The spacious world cannot again afford. 
—Shakespeare, 
HOUGH time her bloom is stealing, 
There ’s still beyond his art — 
The wild-flower wreath of feeling, 
The sunbeam of the heart. —Halleck. ! 
(a 21 ase 
{9 4 
Ss ae 
: sew 
