Devil's Guts
.11,411L just spent a profitable if exasperating hour freeing a vegetable bed from bindweed. It had grown up through the feathery leaves of the carrots, strangled several young beets, insinuated itself up the runner bees: poles and matted itself firmly round the winter broccoli, all the while putting forth such hsnocent-looking little flowers. I hate the bindweed before it flowers (classing it lisiously with the ivy. that debasing growth), but there is something specially appealing about the little convolvtdus cups duo bloom just for one day and open Sc, whitely in the moonlight. " There is a flower," says Turner, " not unlyke unto a islye in the herb e which A called convolyarns, it groweth among shrubbes and busshes and hath no savour, nether any little rhyves lyke sagrone as a lyly bath. Only representing a lyly in whytertes. and it is az it were an imperfect worke of nature learninge to make lylyes." But for all the loveliness of its flowers. the old gardeners' name of Devil's Guts is singularly appropriate to the creeping roots that travel such distances underground and wind themselves round everything they encounter on their Sal'.
MEXT to the bindweed on our lv list of autumn enemies comes the Cleaver. making life a burden to anybody who has a long-haired dog or cat. Our little Lakeland frequently comes in from the fields these days blinded by the streams of cleaver across his eyes and ears, and with the horrid little burrs matted in his coat, requiring long and patient combing to free him from them and remove all danger of the gastric trouble that he gets if he starts doing this for himself.
Harvest Lice, Sticklebacks, Grip. grass, Tongue Bleeder. Cling Rascal . . . these are a few of the names that have been all too appropriately given to the plant whose hooked fruits, clinging to the coats of animals or to unsuspecting human beings, have such an embarrassing way of disseminating themselves. In Sweden these burrs are used for the making of coffee. and in some parts of the country for beer. while in Spring the young shoots can be made into a broth that is said to be a good blood purifier—so I suppose there is some good to be said for the plant in spite of its unpleasant habits!
Julian