674 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



One might spend weeks over the exquisite Compositm, whose 

 examples are incomparable. Here, again, the aid given by the 

 enlarged details is incalculable, and it is delightful to be able to 

 study the infinite variations of the multitudinous florets without 

 the microscope. Let us note the difference of detail shown in 

 three species of a single genus. Here are the three Encelias 

 farinosa, canescens, and eriocephala respectively California 

 plants with what might be described as starry, yellow flowers, all 

 much alike in the careless eye of the amateur botanist. Each of 

 the three species shows in detail a single floret enlarged from ten 

 to twenty times, and also one of the surrounding ray flowers. In 

 studying these we begin to find in what respects the flowers do 

 not resemble each other. 



E. canescens shows the receptacle and a chaff scale, varying in 

 form from that of E. farinosa, a scale of the involucre with its 

 silvery hairs and the fruit magnified ten times. 



In the third species (E. eriocephala) the color as well as the 

 form of the floret differs from those of the first-named species 

 the yellow, tubular floret with its protruding pistil deepening 

 to a warm brown, thus giving to the crowded head of flowers the 

 appearance of a dark, velvety disk amid t-:e surrounding rays of 

 a brilliant yellow. 



The foliage, too, of the three species shows a marked distinc- 

 tion in coloring, that of E. canescens being of a rich warm green^ 

 which in E. farinosa changes to a glaucous blue-green, while in 

 E. eriocephala both stem and leaves assume a downy texture. 



The Asters and Erigerojis are wonderfully perfect, from the 

 young buds showing only the involucral scales or the tips of the 

 closed ray flowers, to the matured flowers in which the discoid 

 florets are fully opened, while the rose or purple rays curve inward 

 as they fade. 



Such plants as Bromelia pinguin and Ananassa sativa, to- 

 gether with the CactacecE, demonstrate the impossibility of ren- 

 dering these plants satisfactorily through any other medium than 

 the glass used here. The heavy flowers of the Opuntias and the 

 Cereus, their fleshy stalks and spiny leaves, are too substantial to 

 be satisfactorily preserved either in alcohol or by drying. In the 

 glass model we seem to see the living plant. 



The barbed leaves of the Bromelia keep their free outward 

 curve as if to defend from trespassers the strong, club-shaped 

 spike from which spring in spiral ranks the pink-purple flowers, 

 each in turn protected by a flower sheath tipped with fierce scar- 

 let. The whole plant has a martial aspect it is a warrior, and a 

 dried specimen of it would fail to give any idea of its true char- 

 acter. 



The Orchids might be dwelt on at great length did space per- 



