Wild-Flower Study 



583 



the sheep not relish you? 

 Are you bitter?" I took a 

 bite, Nebuchadnezzar-like, 

 and to my untrained taste it 

 seemed as good fodder as any; 

 but my tongue smarted and 

 burned for some time after, 

 from being pricked by the felt 

 which covered the leaf. I 

 recalled the practical joke of 

 which my grandmother once 

 made me the victim; she told 

 me that to be beautiful, I 

 needed only to rub my cheeks 

 with mullein leaves, an ex- 

 perience which convinced me 

 that there were other things 

 far more desirable than beauty 

 — comfort, for instance. This 

 felt on the mullein is beautiful, 

 when looked at through a 

 microscope ; it consists of a 

 fretwork of little, white, sharp 

 spikes. No wonder my cheeks 

 were red one day and purple 

 the next, and no wonder the 

 sheep will not eat it unless 

 starved! This frostlike felt 

 covering not only keeps the 

 mullein safe from grazing ani- 

 mals but it also keeps the 

 water from evaporating from 

 the leaf and this enables the 

 plant to withstand drought. 

 I soon discovered another 

 means devised by the mullein 

 for this same purpose, when I 

 tried to dig up the plant with 

 a stick; I followed its tap- 

 root down far enough to 

 understand that it was a sub- 

 soiler and reached below most 

 other plants for moisture and 

 food. Although it was late 

 autumn, the mullein was still 

 in blossom ; there were flowers 

 near the tip and also one here and there on the seed-crowded stem. I 

 estimated there were hundreds of seed-capsules on that one plant; I 

 opened one, still covered with the calyx-lobes, and found that the 

 mullein was still battling for survival; for I found this capsule and 

 many others inhabited by little brown-headed white grubs, which gave 

 an exhibition of St. Vitus dance as I laid open their home. They were the 



Mullein. 

 Photo by Verne Morton 



