There are several species of stick-tights, or beggar ticks, as they are more generally called.
Some have rather large flower heads, with the outer flowers each provided with a long, broad yellow petal. These are often called wild sunflowers, because they look something like a little sunflower.
There is a plant called Spanish needles, very closely related to the stick-tights, and that has four horns to its seed pod.
The burr marigold, which grows in wet places, and whose greenish flower heads are round like a marble, is also related to the stick-tights, and, like the Spanish needles, has four horns.
A great many plants have these little horned seed cases, and when you go about the country in the fall of the year you will be certain to make the acquaintance of some of them. The plants with horned seed pods wish their seeds to get out of the dense thickets in which they usually grow, and they do what they can to help them.
AGRIMONY AND OTHER WEEDS.
In the fall of the year and towards the end of summer we find a great many weeds in the woods and along the roads, sending their seeds out into the world by means of stout hooks, or else hooked hairs or sharp spines.