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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



the steeple bush can resist changes in the 

 weather and degrees of moisture that otherwise 

 would be injurious, if not fatal. 



Many other flowers wear their coats on the 

 top of the leaves rather than underneath. They 

 are usually flowers that grow out in the open 

 and get the full benefit of the noonday sun; 

 they would die of thirst if they did not have 

 some way to check the process of transpiration 

 when subjected to undue heat; hence this coat 

 of fur. 



The distribution of the hardhack is rather 

 wide, reaching from Nova Scotia to Georgia 

 and Kansas. It has so arranged its domestic 

 economy that in the event the insects fail to 

 bring it pollen from other flowers_ it can use 

 its own for purposes of reproduction — a plan 

 which it resorts to, however, only in a last 

 desperate effort to insure itself against an un- 

 productive life. 



BUTTER-AND-EGGS OR YELLOW 

 TOAD FLAX (Linaria vulgaris Hill) 



(See page 595) 



Butter-and-eggs is another flower that pre- 

 fers to dwell in the open among men rather 

 than in the forests among the trees. It inhabits 

 waste lands, roadsides, and fallow fields, and 

 blooms from June to October. It continues to 

 add its orange and yellow color to the land- 

 scape until the frost comes upon the pumpkins 

 and the fodder has been gathered into the 

 shock. It is an immigrant, having come orig- 

 inally from Asia by way of Europe ; but it has 

 already spread from Nova Scotia to Nebraska 

 and Virginia. 



The butter-and-eggs is preeminently a bum- 

 blebee's flower. If other insects visit it, they 

 have a very difficult time to persuade it to give 

 them a sip of its nectar. The doors to its 

 honey wells are always closed, and are so 

 hinged that nothing but a heavy bee can push 

 them open. The honey-bee is too light to op- 

 erate them, and consequently it usually departs 

 hungry. 



When the bumblebee arrives at one of the 

 butter-colored cornucopias holding the yolk of 

 an egg, it alights on the lower lip of the flower, 

 and its weight causes the door to fly open and 

 the sign of welcome to be displayed. The bee 

 enters, sticks its pump-like tongue down into 

 the cup of nectar, and takes a draught. While 

 it is doing this it is receiving in its turn a 

 liberal dusting of pollen and depositing some 

 of that which it received from the flower pre- 

 viously visited. Then it backs out, flies away 

 to another blossom, while the door closes after 

 the departing guest. 



The butter-and-eggs has a hearty dislike for 

 ants, and it has therefore built itself breast- 

 works which can withstand every attack they 

 make. It covers itself with bristly hairs, all 

 pointing in the direction of possible invasion, 

 and the ant armies that can successfully over- 

 come this preparedness program are few and 

 far between. 



The plant has many qualities that protect it, 

 among others the acridity of its juices. House- 

 wives, in the days when everything was home- 

 made, mixed its juices with milk, and the re- 

 sult was an excellent fly-poison. They also 

 made an infusion from its leaves, which they 

 administered to ailing chickens in the spring. 



Butter-and-eggs has many aliases. In some 

 localities it is called yellow toad flax, while 

 elsewhere eggs-and-bacon, flaxweed, and gall- 

 wort are names used to designate it. It is a 

 member of that numerous and prolific family, 

 the figworts. Among its cousins are the mul- 

 lens, the blue-eyed Marys, the monkey flower, 

 and the foxglove. 



COMMON MULLEN OR VELVET 

 PLANT (Verbascum thapsus L.) 



(See page 596) 



The mullen is a distinguished member of the 

 figwort family — a family that includes the but- 

 ter-and-eggs, the monkey flower, blue toadflax, 

 hairy beard-tongue, the Indian paint brush, and 

 the wood betony. 



The mullen is a lover of dry fields, banks, 

 and stony waste lands. An old abandoned 

 grass field is its particular preference, and it 

 grows there in numbers that are very discour- 

 aging to the lad with a hoe who has been as- 

 signed to the task of waging a single-handed 

 war of extermination against it. It flowers 

 from July to September all over the northeast- 

 ern part of America and in Europe and Asia 

 as well. 



Like many of its fellow-members of the fig- 

 wort family, the mullen looks like something 

 else. In some places it is called the taper 

 flower, because its tall stalk seems a "taper 

 tall" carried by the witches in the olden days. 

 In other places it is called Aaron's rod, shep- 

 herd's club, and Jacob's staff. 



The mullen has been with us in America so 

 long that Europe has almost forgotten the fact 

 that it is a native of that continent. Indeed, in 

 the popular mind there it is a native of Amer- 

 ica. The Irish cultivate it in their flower gar- 

 dens and call it the American velvet plant; but, 

 in reality, it is an immigrant which has made 

 itself decidedly at home on our shores. It 

 came over as a stowaway, riding in the ballast, 

 like many another weed that has developed the 

 instincts of the globe-trotting hobo. 



Indeed, one might trace the history of com- 

 merce by the weeds that grow along its path- 

 ways. Many plants won a footing on strange 

 shores by riding in earth ballast in the old days, 

 and in more modern times cattle were driven 

 hundreds of miles to market, leaving the routes 

 they took marked with weeds and plants more 

 or less alien to those districts. Today rail- 

 roads are active disseminators of alien vegeta- 

 tion, many a weed having been able to start 

 colonies far and wide through that agency. 



The mullen owes its name of velvet plant to 

 the soft, velvety appearance of its leaves. Be- 

 ing forced to endure intense heat in summer 

 by reason of its preference for an open situa- 



