6 



Pwwson : Weeds. 



light, strong, elastic, and weatherproof, and which, moreover, is 

 as full of life and movement and of so-called instinct as many 

 animals ; how conscious of the disadvantage of inter-breeding, 

 each little floret refuses to be fertilised by its own pollen ; how 

 the mother-flower protects the whole family from rain and 

 tempest ; how it rears itself aloft in the sunshine with ever- 

 lengthening stem ; how, its blooming over, for greater security 

 it lies down to ripen its seed ; the seed ripe, how it rises again 

 above the herbage and sends its progeny forth on the breeze 

 to colonize and to conquer. Thus will the interest and admira- 

 tion of the youth be excited ; so will he, when the time comes, 

 enter with expectation and pleasure into the more hidden 

 mysteries of plant life. 



I propose now to offer you a few observations on the subject 

 of Weeds — those plants which are the constant but undesired 

 occupants of gardens and of cultivated ground. Usually no one 

 has a good word for them, but to us naturalists every type of 

 life is of abounding interest. Nothing is to us common or 

 unclean. But weeds are in many ways extraordinary plants 

 and they are in the highest degree worthy of our attention. 



Our country has been for so many centuries inhabited and 

 cultivated that, except on moors and mountains, rocks, sea- 

 cliff's, shore-lines, and water-margins, almost every foot of it 

 has been disturbed by agriculture, or by forestry, or by drainage. 

 Still, there is no reason to believe that the plants which once 

 occupied this cultivated ground have disappeared. They have 

 been driven from the fields, but they still exist with probably 

 few exceptions in the hedgerows, on the steep banks, along the 

 streams, among the tangle, and on the fringe of woods and 

 copses. 



On the other hand, there can be no manner of doubt that 

 the flowering plants at any rate have been greatly reinforced by 

 this turning over of the land-surface. Many herbs which were 

 introduced for food or medicine have gone wild and claimed 

 permanent citizenship and many more have been brought here 

 by accident ; but I do not speak of these. 



The great woods and heaths of aboriginal England and its 

 vast fens and marshes could not support so diverse a vegetation 

 as a cultivated land, which has, in addition to remnants of these 

 wild features, hedgerows with mounds and ditches, sheltering 

 walls and sunny roadside wastes, fields drained and enriched, 

 ponds, planlalions and copses tended and thinned — each offering 



Naturalist, 



