EECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



11 



Each of. our prospective liaadfuls is made to 

 embrace a certain section of plants, related 

 to eacH other ia the natural classification. 

 It is by no means requisite that all the plants 

 named should be gathered at once, and, in- 

 deed, as they often blow at different periods 

 of the year, this would be impossible ; but 

 enoiigh may always be found to illustrate our 

 text, not only as regards the classification of 

 the flowers, but with reference to the other 

 botanical lessons which have been appended 

 to each section. A general summing up will 

 probably gather ouj* handfuls into one. If 

 many common wayside flowers are familiar, 

 and deck our first early wanderings in the 

 fields, no less so are the fruits which succeed ; 

 heps and.haws, crab apples, hazel nuts, sloes, 

 blackberries, strawberries, and many another, 

 for 



" Blackberries so mawkish now, 



Were finely flavoui-ed then." 



He or she must be veritably town born and 

 bred, if they do not know these the common 

 fruits of childhood's garden, and thus, pre- 

 suming upon the knowledge, we will add 

 our baskets of hedge-row fruits to our hand- 

 fuls of wayside flowers. 



Handful I. — Flowers in Many Piecijs, 

 . " Many-Petaled." 



Weeds are flowers — The Handful — Poppies — But- 

 tercups and Marsh Marygold — ^Wallflower and Lady's 

 Smock — Violets — Lychnis — Stitch wort — Chickweed 

 and Geranium — Petals or flower-leaves — How attached 

 " — Their shape and parts — A corolla — Stamens, their 

 site, and how distinguished^-Pistil or central organ ; 

 its forms — Calyx ; its forms, etc. — Position of parts of 

 flowers in handful the first — Likeness and Difference 

 — The Buttercups and Crowfoots — Poppy characters — 

 Wallflower and the Cruciforms — Eegular Flowers — 

 Starwort and Geranium — Summary. 



Let US see what we have got. Weeds 

 every one of them ! Weeds we all know them 

 to be, but flowers they are as well ; we wUl 

 therefore give them the name indifferently, 

 weeds or flowers, as it may be. Poppies 

 in their red, from the corn-field or wayside ; 

 bright shining buttercups from the meadows, 

 with their magnificent cousin the marsh 



marygold ; a stray wallflower from the,; old 

 castle waU, or garden if you wUl, for it ip 

 a true British wUdling ; lady's smock ; and 

 a charlock — the yellow flower you always caU 

 wild mustard — or, if you like it better, a 

 water-cress. Do not forget our wee blue 

 friends the sweet violets, for, except the fra- 

 grant wallflower, they are the only scented 

 blossoms in our bundle. Add to these a 

 scarlet lychnis ; one of the brilliant white 

 stitchworts, or starworts, abetter name, from 

 under the May hedgerow, and with it its 

 little sister the common chickweed, and the 

 mouse-ear, like a hairy chickweed, though it 

 is not one ; lastly, put in a common wayside 

 geranium, and we have handful No. 1, from 

 which we are to learn a whole heap of bo- 

 tanical lore. 



Our paper is headed " Many-pieced, or 

 many-petaled flowers," TJnbotanical people 

 call the pieces of a flower " leaves ; " but as 

 the same term is applied to the leaves of the 

 plant generally, the pretty term " petal" is 

 more convenient ; we therefore, for the future, 

 shall always speak of petals, albeit it gives 

 our first initiament into botanical terms. 

 Take all the flowers of our handful, or as 

 many of them as you have got, and look at 

 these petals ; pull them off if you possess a 

 good show of specimens, and you wUl ^ee 

 that they are all xinconnected with one 

 another. First comes the bright red poppy, 

 with its four petals (Fig. 1), aU attached 



Fig. 1. — Petal of Common Poppy. 



beneath the projection in the centre of thfe 

 flower (Fig. 6). . 



