160 WILD FLOWERS OF 



" Dandelion this 



A college youth that flashes for a day 



All gold ; anon he doffs his gaudy suit, 



Touch'd by the magic hand of some grave bishop, 



And all at once, by commutation strange, 



Becomes a reverend divine. How sleek ! 



How full of grace ! that globous wig 



So nicely trimm'd."* 



Common as this object is, how beautiful its mechanism 

 when examined as it deserves to be, and how indica- 

 tive of providential design. When the golden florets 

 wither and the calyx shuts up, the seeds are not ready 

 for the purpose nature designs them, therefore the 

 withered florets, twisted in a mass, keep off the rain, 

 while the pillar of the seed-down grows to its full 

 length, and then they are pushed off; the pillars still 

 rising bear upon the calyx, which now gently expands, 

 while, at the same time, the receptacle altering its 

 form from concave to convex, the calyx is more and 

 more deflexed, till at length its segments are pushed 

 parallel with the stalk, and the globe of down is com- 

 plete in its beauty, ready and anxious for that mystic 

 flight which spreads its progeny abroad upon the 

 earth. 



The Daisies about this time show their argent rays 

 tipped with crimson, in the acme of their beauty, for 

 their lines of silver will now soon be lost before the 

 more gorgeous sway of millions of golden Buttercups. 

 In orchards a beautiful pale liloid flower now presents 

 itself, the two-flowered Narcissus (N. biflorus), often 

 by the first of the month ; the red Lychnis or Cam- 

 pion (L. diurna), begins to beautify the sides of 

 hedges, and the Cowslips gradually going out, are 



* HlTRDIS. 



