120 
DOTTINGS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap. VIII.-B. S. 
formed by those plants which we call weeds , the real 
nature of which is as yet but little understood. 
Considering that weeds are found in every part of 
the inhabited world, it is singular that so few lan¬ 
guages have a full equivalent of the term “weed” 
and that so useful an idea as that popularly embodied 
in it should not have been, long ere this, translated 
into science. The Latin “ herba ,” or Spanish “ yerla ,” 
certainly do include our ‘weed;’ but whilst every 
weed is a herb, not every herb is a weed. What, 
then, is the real meaning of 1 weed ’ ? Dictionary 
writers do not help us much by qualifying 1 weed ’ as a 
mean or troublesome herb, for the popular mind asso¬ 
ciates with the nature of a weed several other charac¬ 
teristics not mentioned by them. We talk of plants 
bearing “ a weedy look,” and though most of us know 
what that means, nobody has as yet made it clear to 
those who do not know. The term 1 weedy ’ would be 
misapplied to the aloes, but fit exactly the generality 
of the Alsinew. We would never say of the heather 
that it had a weedy look; in fact, the term would 
never suggest itself in connection with that species. 
The vegetation of New Holland would not be de¬ 
scribed, speaking generally, as bearing a weedy look, 
whilst that of the lower coast region of most tropical 
countries could scarcely be better defined than by that 
phrase. One of the most essential characteristics of a 
weed is, therefore, that it should look weedy, or, in 
other words, that its stem and foliage should be 
neither too fleshy nor too leathery, but of a soft, flaccid, 
or membranaceous description. 
