The hound's tongue's four nutlets,
grouped in a pyramid, and with barbed spears as grappling-hooks,
imbed themselves in our garments until they pucker the cloth.
Wool growers hurl anathemas at this whole tribe of plants.
A near relative, the common VIRGINIA STICKSEED (Lappula
Virginiana; C. Morisoni of Gray) produces similar little barbed
nutlets, following insignificant, tiny, palest blue or white
flowers up the spike. These bristling seeds, shaped like
sad-irons, reflect in their title the ire of the persecuted man
who named them Beggar's Lice. If as Emerson said, a weed, is a
plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered, the hound's
tongue, the similar but blue-flowered WILD COMFREY (C.
Virginicum), next of kin, and the stickseed are no weeds; for
ages ago the caterpillars of certain tiger moths learned to
depend on their foliage as a food store,
OSWEGO TEA; BEE BALM; INDIAN'S PLUME; FRAGRANT BALM; MOUNTAIN
MINT
(Monarda didyma) Mint family
Flowers - Scarlet, clustered in a solitary, terminal, rounded
head of dark-red calices, with leafy bracts below it.
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