In the open

by Stanton Davis Kirkham

[WEEDS]

A strange analogy exists between plant life and some aspects of human life. The same stern necessity of the survival of the fittest—physical in one, and in the other mental and spiritual—seems to inhere in both. Among the weeds, competition is the dominant note, as it is in our world. In some higher circles it is sounded faintly, while untold legions of the more delicate plants—like sensitive natures—are driven to the wall, unequal to the struggle.

There are weeds whose ways suggest the arrogant monopoly, and others which recall the parasites of society. The dodder fastens upon its victim and the bindweed throttles the innocent. To withstand the severe competition of pigweed and ragweed, the garden patch requires your energy, plus its own; and the more war is waged upon these, the more does it seem to encourage the purslane, which thrives like a freebooter in this sort of warfare.

One can imagine no more irrepressible rabble than these weeds of the garden. They seem possessed almost of a conscious life, and to push and shove and scramble for place like a hard-headed, thick-skinned, piratical crew. Many of them are immigrants, the riffraff of Europe, who have found their way to our shores, some to become good citizens, and others to remain pestilent anarchists, opposed to the law and order of the kitchen-garden and rebelling against all government by the hoe. Yet how happy are the bob-whites and the tree-sparrows for the poor seeds of the ragweed when the snow lies deep. They repair to these as to an unfailing larder, which may lie between them and starvation at such times. Through some kind providence, the seeds remain into the winter to be shaken down upon the snow. The obnoxious weed of summer rises to the dignity of usefulness and becomes a food plant—grain and corn to the hungry birds.

There are weeds and there are weeds. So much depends upon the point of view; is it a weed on the lawn, or is the lawn but a background for the dandelions which star the grass? What bright day-stars are these which beam upon us from the orchards and by-roads with cheerful golden radiance! And when these shining stars have grown dim and faded from their firmament of green, there appear in their place such white wraiths of their former selves as resemble the moon seen by the light of day. They are now so many extinct suns, so many ghosts of the dandelions, soon dissolving into still less substantial state, to be spirited away on the winds.

During the summer the common dandelions gradually disappear, and at length the fall dandelions suddenly spring into prominence, poking their flower-heads up on long scapes. With commendable thrift these are closed every night, that a little pollen may not be wet by the dew. These fall flowers appear to be more numerous even than the early species. They can sustain themselves in tall grass where the latter could not, keeping their flower-heads always floating on the rising tide of green. You may see fields of red clover mixed with dandelions, while the Virginia creeper lies in scarlet splendor along stone walls, and goldenrod and asters are massed on the borders—Elysian fields surely. The play of light and color is a kind of music, and stimulates one to some inner hearing. The deaf could hear this. And were the blind to listen to the crickets' reverie, they might see these fields.

Is there anywhere a more audacious beauty than the pokeweed in autumn? It flaunts itself in your face—one of the respectable bourgeoisie of weeds, now suddenly arrayed in this regal fashion and mocking you with its splendid beauty. A weed! Why are not roses weeds as they stand all forlorn before this voluptuous child of the people? Out of the plebeian rabble there comes here and there such a superb creature as this.

Consider the milkweeds,—a family of beauties. Something luxuriant and sensuous there is in their ample proportions. They have an excessive health, an exuberance of vitality; a full-blooded race, if you so much as break a leaf from one it bleeds like a wounded creature. From the mud, the swamp-milkweed has derived some rich hue, while the butterfly-weed in the pasture has caught the very sunshine itself and become a living flame. The great pod of the milkweed is the luxuriant fruit of this fine plant, as tropical in appearance as any mango or cocoa bean. When it is ripe, in place of a luscious flavor, it discloses a mass of finest silk, a fluffy ball. Who would guess the treasure within these grotesque pods with their long beaks, their spines and wrinkles? They are like curious old junks with a cargo of rich stuffs of the East, which children—young pirates that they are—overhaul on the high seas of the pasture and despoil of their treasure.

It is the sturdy character, if nothing more, of some weeds which constitutes their charm, for health is beautiful everywhere. Ironweed and joepye-weed are such lusty, vigorous plants, and burdock and jimson-weed. The earth shall nourish them; they push themselves to the front; they do not live by any one's favor. How can the impoverished dust of the roadside sustain these burdocks with their incredible leaves? The richest swamp produces no such extravagant foliage. As for the ironweed, it clothes the pastures with a royal purple, so rich a hue it compels the eye, and is a kind of stimulant. One may become mildly intoxicated with such color.