434 
Old Time Gardens 
the Spurge, Henbane, Rue, Dogtooth Violet, Ni- 
gella, and pink Marsh Mallow. The latter has ever 
been to me one of the most cheerful of blossoms. I 
did not know it in my earliest childhood, and never 
saw it in gardens till recent years. It is too close a 
cousin of the Hollyhock ever to seem to me aught 
but a happy flower. Henbane and Rue I did not 
know, but I share his feeling toward the others, 
though I could not carry it to the extent of fancy- 
ing these the plants which a young man gathered, 
distilled, and gave to his betrothed as a poison. 
There has ever been much uncanny suggestion in 
the Cypress Spurge. I never should have picked it 
had I found it in trim gardens ; but I saw it only in 
forlorn and neglected spots. Perhaps its sombre 
tinge may come now from association, since it is 
often seen in country graveyards ; and I heard a 
country woman once call it “ Graveyard Ground 
Pine.” But this association was not what influ- 
enced my childhood, for I never went then to grave- 
yards. 
In driving along our New England roads I am 
ever reminded of Parkinson’s dictum that “ Spurge 
once planted will hardly be got rid out again.” For 
by every decaying old house, in every deserted gar- 
den, and by the roadside where houses may have been, 
grows and spreads this Cypress Spurge. I know a 
large orchard in Narragansett from which grass has 
wholly vanished ; it has been crowded out by the 
ugly little plant, which has even invaded the adjoin- 
ing woods. 
I wonder why every one in colonial days planted 
