THE TALL MIDSUMMER WEEDS. 



201 



will hardly find a flower left by the first of Au- 

 gust. 



If we should happen to pass a wooded clearing 

 which has been burned over, here we will see the 

 coarse, heavy, grooved stems of the fire- 

 weed (Erechtites Meracifolia), with its 

 alternate, lance - shaped, ■ cut - toothed 

 leaves waving in the passing breeze. 

 The stem grows from one to five feet 

 high and terminates in an ample 

 panicle of small white flowers 

 somewhat tubular in shape. It 

 is a rank-smelling (often hairy 

 stemmed) weed of unattractive 

 appearance. But quite its 

 equal in disagreeable odor is the 

 common burdock {Arctium Lap- 

 pa), which one invariably finds in 

 the waste ground beside some old, 

 abandoned farmhouse. Every one 

 knows how tenacious the little hooked 

 tips of the burs are ; children frame baskets with 

 the clinging things, and those who visit the deserted 

 house on the neglected byway, usually carry away 

 numerous burry souvenirs of the occasion on their 

 clothing. But burdock has an aesthetic if not a 

 homely interest, for the artist finds it an indispen- 



Fireweed. 



