BECEEATIVE SCIEK'CE. 



271 



feathery wings ; the daisy, the chamomile, 

 the chrysanthemum, and others, have none, 

 or at best a few tiny scales, to show where 

 they should be. 



Both in the way of food and medicine, the 

 composites, of which we have examined these 

 few representatives, yield largely to man. 

 The prevailing principle is a bitter, some- 

 times, as in the wormwood, aromatic, or, as 

 in the lettuce, narcotic to an extent which 

 makes itself known even in the cultivated 

 vegetables, and is strong in some of the un- 

 cultivated species. Dahlias, aster, cinerarias, 

 purple groundsel, the everlastings, are a few 

 of the many brilliant flowers this great 

 family offers to us. 



The elder, which we lately mentioned, 

 belongs to the same tribe as the honeysuckle, 

 whilst the woodruff and bedstraws represent 



to us the madders, their most remarkable 

 features being the " whorled " disposition of 

 the leaves around the stem (Fig. 45). The 

 bedstraws have some of them white, others 

 have yellow flowers ; the flowers of the 

 woodruff are small, but brilliant white, and 

 those of the little field-madder are pink. 

 Tiny corollas are they all, but elegantly cru- 

 ciform in shape. If you have the patience 

 to dissect them, under your lens you will find 

 the stamens fixed to the corolla, and the 

 corolla to the calyx. No lens do you need, 

 however, to look at the bluebells, the repre- 

 sentatives of the campanula tribe, and you 

 easily make out that the same floral struc- 

 ture which has grouped our Handful prevails 

 with them ; the stamens, however, are not 

 attached to the corolla, and the stigma is 

 lobed. Spencer Thomson, M.D. 



(To he continued.) 



THE AIS-ATOMY OF A CUBE. 



If a solid block of wood, of the form repre- 

 sented in Fig. 1, were given to any person 



Fig. 1. 



not accustomed to look a little below the 

 surface of those things which present them- 

 selves to the eye ; and he were asked to dis- 

 sect it, to describe its anatomy, its structure, 

 its most interesting relations to other forms, 

 to show the facility with which more compli- 

 cated figures, such as Figs. 2 and 3, could be 



cut out of it, and to point out the extreme 

 value of such knowledge to all who are en- 



Fia. 2. 



Fig. 3. 



gaged in pursuits dealing with solid mate- 

 rials ; he would perhaps smile incredulously, 

 and tell you that it was simply a block of 

 wood, square every way, and that he did not 

 see anything more in it, or that anything 

 more could be said about it. 



Let me, to use the exquisite simile of one 

 of our greatest poetjS, endeavour " to strip 

 the veU of familiarity from his eyes, and lay 



