"Miss Portulaca Purslane, of course, sometimes called Rose-moss, because her flower is something like a wild rose and her stem and leaves a little like overgrown moss."
"Oh, is my sweet rose-moss just old pursley weed?" whimpered little Prue, who was very proud of a little bunch of portulaca that was just in full bloom. She had chosen the pretty flower from a catalogue, and it had been one of her best growers.
"Why, no, Prue, your rose-moss is not a weed at all, but she belongs to the Purslane family, and like a good many other families it has a member who has run wild and become a disgrace to its relatives and a trouble to everybody. There is another wild purslane, but it is not a weed. It is just a little wild-wood cousin of Portulaca. Her name is Claytonia, and she lives in pleasant places in the woods, and hides under the leaves in winter-time. Most people call her Spring-beauty."
"Oh, Spring-beauty! Oh, I know! Just bushels of them—Davy and I found over by the lake last spring! Little white flowers with pink lines in them, and smell—just a little tiny smell—so—so springy and wild. Oh, I just love Spring-beauties! But I'm sorry my nice rose-moss is pursley. Is it, Papa? Is it really a sister to that ugly weed?"
"Suppose you bring a branch of each over to the bench here—one with flowers on it."
Prue brought a sprig of her precious rose-moss, and Davy a large piece of the pursley from the pile he had just cut down. The Chief Gardener took them and put them together.
"You see, they are a good deal alike," he said, "though the leaves are different—Miss Portulaca's being the finer."
Then he took one of the tiny pursley flowers and put it under the magnifying-glass, and let the children look. Yes, it was almost exactly like the beautiful flower of the rose-moss, only smaller. Each flower had two green sepals and five colored petals, also five stamens, so they knew it was an exogen, though it would have been harder to tell this from the thick, pulpy leaves and stem. The little seed-pod of each had a tiny cap which lifted off when the seeds were ripe, leaving a perfect cup, heaping full.
"You see, children," said the Chief Gardener, "weeds do not care to be either useful or ornamental. So they become rank and common, and lose their beautiful flowers. But somehow they never have any less seed. They want to grow just as thickly as they can, and however small their flowers are, the seed-pods are always full to the brim."
"Well," said Prue, "I'm sure there can't be any of my flowers relation to chickweed. I never can get that out of my beds."