NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 
exotic, having been introduced among foreign grasses and 
thus become naturalized to the country. 
There seems to be really no special virtue in the plant; 
though it boasts of a name which should entitle it to notice, 
yet we are ignorant of its medicinal or healing uses. It is 
destitute of any sweetness, but the blossoms are pretty and 
associated with English meadows and green bowery lanes, 
so we look kindly upon the purple-lipped flower for the dear 
Old Country’s sake. 
CoMMON MULLEIN—Verbascum Thapsus (L.). 
This plant is one of the tallest of our wayside weeds; the 
large soft leaves, densely clothed with silky white hairs, are 
not considered without value by the herb-doctors. They are 
used in pulmonary disorders, as outward applications for 
healing purposes, and in such complaints as dysentery, to 
allay pain; the leaves are made hot before the fire and so 
laid over the body of the sufferer. Moreover, this wonderful 
plant, if laid in cellars or granaries, is said to drive away 
rats and mice; but this virtue may be only a fond delusion. 
Commend me rather to Miss Pussy as a more certain exter- 
minator of these troublesome household pests. A grand and. 
stately spike of golden flowers, called Giant-taper, grew in: 
my father’s garden, and was the resort of honey-bees in--. 
numerable. Homely as our Canadian plant is considered to. 
be, yet it has uses of its own besides those attributed to. 
it by the old settlers. The abundance of the seeds, which 
remain in the hard capsules during the winter, afford a. 
bountiful supply of food for the small birds that come to us. 
early in Spring. In March, and early in April, the snow-- 
birds and their associates, the little chestnut-crowned. 
sparrows, 
‘That come before the swallow dares,” 
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