The ARROW-LEAVED TEAR THUMB (P. sagittatum), found in ditches and swampy wet soil, weakly leans on other plants, or climbs over them with the help of the many sharp, recurved prickles which arm its four-angled stem. Even the petioles and underside of the leaf's midrib are set with prickles. The light green leaves, that combine the lance and the arrow shapes, take on a beautiful russet-red tint in autumn. The little, five-parted rose-colored or greenish-white flowers grow in small, close terminal heads from July to September from Nova Scotia to the Gulf and far westward. SEASIDE or COAST JOINTWEED or KNOT-GRASS (Polygonella articulata; Polygonum articulatum of Gray) a low, slender, wiry, diffusely spreading little plant, with thread-like leaves seated on its much-jointed stem, rises cleanly from out the sand of the coast from Maine to Florida, and the shores of the Great Lakes. Very slender racemes of tiny, nodding, rose-tinted white flowers, with a dark midrib to each of the five calyx segments, are insignificant of themselves; but when seen in masses, from July to October, they tinge the upper beaches and sandy meadows with a pink blush that not a few artists have transferred to the foreground of their marine pictures. CORN COCKLE; CORN ROSE; CORN or RED CAMPION; CROWN-OF-THE-FIELD (Agrostemma Githago; Lychnis Githago of Gray) Pink family Flowers - Magenta or bright purplish crimson, to 3 in. broad, solitary at end of long, stout footstem; 5 lobes of calyx leaf-like, very long and narrow, exceeding petals. Corolla of 5 broad, rounded petals; 10 stamens; 5 styles alternating with calyx lobes, opposite petals. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. high, erect, with few or no branches, leafy, the plant covered with fine white hairs. Leaves: Opposite, seated on stem, long, narrow, pointed, erect. Fruit: a 1-celled, many-seeded capsule. Preferred Habitat - Wheat and other grain fields; dry, waste places. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - United States at large; most common in Central and Western States. Also in Europe and Asia. "Allons! allons! sow'd cockle, reap'd no corn," exclaims Biron in "Love's Labor Lost." Evidently the farmers even in Shakespeare's day counted this brilliant blossom the pest it has become in many of our own grain fields just as it was in ancient times, when Job, after solemnly protesting his righteousness, called on his own land to bear record against him if his words were false. "Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley," he cried, according to James the First's translators; but the "noisome weeds" of the original text seem to indicate that these good men were more anxious to give the English people an adequate conception of Job's willingness to suffer for his honor's sake than to translate literally. Possibly the cockle grew in Southern Asia in Job's time : today its range is north.