24 NOVEMBER 1939, Page 14

COUNTRY LIFE

An Altruistic Bouquet

Some of the little evacuated urban children will have to be classed with the green plover as supreme friends of agri- culture. I met one little girl almost weighed down with a sheaf of ragwort that she had been plucking. Like scores of other plants, wild and tame, it has flowered very late this year, and it is one of the three weeds specifically condemned in the Noxious Weeds Act, and its spread is one of the outstanding offences of the times. It is to the South what bracken is to the North and West. Who shall say that this too common flower is not beautiful? It differs hardly at all from its garden cousin, Senecio rotun- difolia, whose blue-green leaves and yellow blossoms are a present delight in a border.