WEEDS OF OUR FIELDS, WAYSIDES AND TOWNS. 9 



fields and gardens exclusively. And this number does not 

 include the roadside and waste land weeds. 



The occurrence of particular species, and the general 

 grouping of species in any particular field, are subject to 

 conditions of soil and climate — the weeds of the sand will 

 differ from those of the clay, and a northern field from a 

 southern. Wherefore, it is, perhaps, misleading to 

 describe any actual field, but to idealise somewhat. 



Foremost among the weeds blazes the scarlet poppy- — 

 three species of it, of which Papaver Rhoeas is the finest 

 and commonest. A beautiful little picture in the Autumn 

 Exhibition this year gives one view of it — The Farmer's 

 Disgrace, by way of title, and another view, by implica- 

 tion, the joy of the artist and the naturalist. 



Its life history is simple. It grows with the corn, 

 flowers with the corn, ripens its seeds with the corn, and 

 scatters them at harvest. Small and unpalatable, they 

 escape notice of man, beast and bird until they germinate 

 in the next or some subsequent spring — one essential to 

 growth being a fair start in bare ground. 



This is the typical weed-habit. But how did the 

 poppy get into the corn ? It grows nowhere else, in this 

 country at least. Not in the wood, not in the water, not 

 in the meadow, not by the sea, or on the mountain, 

 scarcely by the wayside except as an obviously temporary 

 visitor. But before attempting an answer to this, a much 

 wider survey will be expedient. Most of the other weeds 

 seem to behave like the poppy, but there are some which 

 will give us valuable hints, especially those which though 

 they flourish mostly in cornfields are found elsewhere. 

 And a good example will be found in the charlock (Bras- 

 sica Sinapis). Earlier than the poppy, the bright yellow 

 flowers of this weed overtop the growing corn, sometimes 

 in single plants, often in a seemingly continuous sheet. 



