122 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 



his mess of pottage ? Who knows the canary grass, with its 

 handsome plumes that finally shed shining seeds for the 

 little birds ? How many of our wayside botanists could 

 find us the earth-nut, if a sudden famine made its sweet and 

 nourishing root acceptable in the place of bread ? The 

 beauty of the cotton plant is unsuspected, and the sugar 

 maple gives a shade that is very pleasant. It is easy to 

 begin, but no one can say where we should end in collecting 

 and cultivating economic plants. 



The common flax (Linum usatissimum) is a beautiful 

 plant, likely to appear, with the hemp and the canary, 

 as mere weeds in the garden of the bird fancier, because 

 the waste of the cages must be sometimes scattered. As 

 regards the flax, it is a weed of the world, for it occurs 

 everywhere as a wilding, not only in Europe and Northern 

 Africa and Asia, but in the southern hemisphere, having 

 been carried by the hand of man wherever he has carried 

 merchandise. It is a tall, slender, exceedingly neat plant, 

 with narrow lanceolate leaves and flowers, crowning the 

 stems in a loose corymb, conspicuous for their large size 

 and their bright blue colour. The petals are obovate and 

 the sepals are pointed. The oily seeds are contained in a 

 depressed globular capsule ; they are of a rich dark brown 

 colour, glossy, of a peculiar flavour, and in their medical 

 uses decidedly laxative. It is not often they are given to 

 caged birds, but every one who has the care of these in- 

 teresting creatures should keep a few " linseeds " in the 

 store-room in case of emergency. Birds that are fed almost 

 exclusively on canary and hemp, with perhaps insufficient 

 vegetable food, may be benefited by an occasional treat of 

 two or three of these oily laxative seeds. The oil that is 

 pressed from linseed is of great importance in the arts, 



