Read by Matilda Longbottom

There are 28 references to weeds in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, and almost all of them are mean. Weeds, according to Bartlett’s chosen quotables, are variously dull, fat, filthy, oozy, poison, and pernicious. Shakespeare says that they smell better than festering lilies, which is what I would call at very best a backhanded compliment; he also says (in Henry IV, Part II) that they are shallow-rooted, which is not necessarily true, since we have repeatedly found specimens in our garden with indefatigable taproots, seemingly bent on drilling themselves to China. John Heywood (1497-1580), on the other hand, who said “Ill weed groweth fast,” had a much more astute grasp of the weed situation, which is not surprising in a gentleman who also came up with such maxims as “Two heads are better than one”, “You cannot see the wood for the trees,” “Better is half a loaf than no bread”, and “Rome was not built in one day.”

Ill weed in our garden groweth not only fast, but damn fast, and in quantity. Most we manage to nab early, as small stuff: photosynthetic creepie-crawlies sprouting around the tomato plants, anonymous grasses sidling up to the cucumber vines, prostrate spurge, prickly lettuce, crabgrass, dandelions. Some we softheartedly let go. I have a weakness for anything flowering, which means that ox-eye daisies slip by my hoe, along with blue-flowered chicory, New England asters, wild violets, red clover, and Queen Anne’s lace. Flowering weeds somehow manage to appear endearing. They’re the Huckleberry Finns of the garden, wicked little waifs who, on the brink of a justifiable beating, turn up cocky freckled faces and look cute. Charm, in almost anything, is insidious. Such weeds, with our foolish connivance, survive.

And some weeds, canny escapists, endure in spite of us, defiantly on their own. The most spectacular escape of this past Summer only came to our attention in August, which says little for our powers of observation, since by then-smugly dominating that neglected corner next to the tiger lily patch-it was taller than the children. A weed of such awesome dimensions seemed too impressive to hack off with the hedge clippers, so we respectfully left it alone. There’s a mathematical point at which weeds become so stunningly dreadful that they receive a grudging admiration, of the sort given, however unfairly, to master criminals. When Edward Pierce, against all odds, pulls off the Great Train Robbery or Professor Moriarty gives Sherlock Holmes a run for his money, one can’t help but appreciate the technique, the talent, the unmitigated gall, the unscrupulous savoir-faire So it is with the truly malevolent weed.

By early Fall, our vegetable villain was pushing 8-feet-tall and we had identified it-after nervous consultation with a weed-and-wildflower guide-as great mullein, known to scientists as Verbascum thapsus, and to everybody else by some 40 different folk names, among them beggars flannel, velvet plant, feltwort, hare’s beard, Jupiter’s staff, hedge taper, candlewick, and lungwort. Great mullein has, we discovered, assorted redeeming features. All its fuzzy names derive from the hairy stems and the furred leaves, which are large, thick, soft, flannelly, and gray, like bedroom slippers. People once tucked these toasty numbers inside their shoes to keep their feet warm. Hummingbirds gather the fur to line their minuscule nests.

The taper and candle names date back to the ancient Romans, who dunked dried mullein stalks in fat and then lit them for use as torches in funeral processions. “Lungwort” refers to the plant’s centuries-old reputation as a remedy for respiratory diseases such as asthma and tuberculosis. Mullein’s also said to be effective against diarrhea, piles, gout, mumps, ringworm, migraines, warts, and slivers. In the 1500’s, people grew it on purpose. Nowadays it’s a vagrant, associated mostly with vacant lots, since it can handle anorexic soil and glaring sun.

We must have had the mullein here last year too, since, like turnips, carrots, and beets, the plant is a biennial. Its first year is spent building up a fat and fleshy taproot which in the second year, fuels the rocket-like growth of the great flowering stalk and the production of seeds. The stalk which once lighted defunct Romans en route to the tomb, is topped by a club-shaped flowerhead covered with sulfur-yellow blossoms. We took photographs of each other beneath this, gawking upwards, in the same spirit that other, better gardeners record on film their prize-winning pumpkins and zucchinis. We then unwisely left it to go to seed, which it did vociferously, producing, by one estimate, enough seeds for 250,000 infant great mulleins, all doubtless future inhabitants of our yard, fields, and garden.

It seems, what with all the possibilities for foot-warmers, funeral torches, hummingbird nests, and gout-alleviating tea, that we should be tickled pink at the prospect. Somehow, however, I find it less than alluring. Weeds have street smarts, but no sense of fair play. Give them an inch, and they’ll grab 10 acres. Our garden, I realize, from the mullein point of view, is just so much soft and over-civilized space, ripe for occupation.

“A weed,” wrote James Russell Lowell naively, “is no more than a flower in disguise.” This is a fine sentiment as far as it goes, but in reality a weed, for all its presumptive heart-or face-of gold, is nature’s way of making lots and lots more weeds. As such, it’s a master infiltrator, a star performer of the botanical world. A Moriarty. ❖