66 LITTLE WANDERERS. 
pleasant old farmhouse, circled all about with deep 
canals ; and from the walls down to the water's edge 
grew great burdocks, so high that under the tallest of 
them a little child might stand upright." 
Like the dandelions and Canada thistles, the burdocks 
came from Europe, and a great many people wish they 
had stayed at home. That is because of their burrs, 
which are a nuisance. in the fall of the year. 
Everybody knows what burrs are. They stick fast 
to the clothes of people and get on the tails and manes 
of horses, where they must cause a great deal of dis- 
comfort, and where it is a great deal of work to pick 
them out. They get upon the tails of cows, too, and 
the fleeces of sheep, and dogs get them on their ears. 
The reason is this : the burrs are full of seed pods. 
The burdock flower head is, like the dandelion, made 
up of a great many tiny flowers, and each flower has a 
close-fitting pod containing one seed, or an akene, as we 
have learned to call it. 
The head of flowers is covered by stiff green bracts, 
and at the end of each bract is a hook. These 
, hooks are soft when the flowers are in blossom, 
and they do not catch fast to things. But when 
the seeds ripen, the bracts grow hard and stiff, 
and so do the hooks at the end. 
Now, when an animal or a person comes along and 
brushes against these ripe burrs, the strong hooks catch ; 
