Rabbit tobacco

 School has started, and rabbit tobacco is putting out loads of little white flowers.

I suppose I connect Pseudognaphalim obtusifolium and school because it’s one of the plants once used by little boys in Texas who were learning to smoke. We learned by rolling our own. We performed this top-secret ceremony at one of our secret hideouts. One of my early memories is getting a dose of discipline from my outraged mother, who had a gift for finding secret hideouts.

Rabbit tobacco grows across the eastern part of the continent. I’ve run across a Georgia gardener who managed to make himself sick by smoking the same plant as a boy.

The plant is in the aster family. The stems and the undersides of the leaves are coated with white hairs, so part of the plant appears to be light gray, almost white.