COMPOSITE FAMILY 



dissected leaves in a rosette so full and flowing as at 

 once to attract the eye. 



The other is the blossoming plant which begins to 

 open its clusters in June. These are white with a 

 dash of brown which spreads as the florets mature and 

 the seeds begin to ripen — when at last the life-drama 



is ended, after the last floret 

 has opened and closed, the 

 plant stands a group of brown 

 stalks crowned by a brown 

 cluster of seed-vessels. 



When these gray-green 

 stems begin -to assert them- 

 selves in June, they are ac- 

 centuated by tight clusters of 

 dull gray-green buds that tip 

 the branches. A few days later 

 the gray, massed buds show a 

 suggestion of white and soon 

 open. What looks in the open 

 cluster like a single corolla 

 with five petals is really a 

 small flower-head with five 

 white ray-florets and a centre 

 of tubular white florets whose 

 mouths are fitted with yellow 

 stamens. There is no grace and little attractiveness 

 about the plant, but it escorts the traveller along the 

 roadsides of three continents. 



Pungent juices lie within these gray-green tissues 

 and it must be because of these that this commonest 

 of common weeds confronts us, not only at the way- 

 sides of the world, but in the mythology, the folk- 



250 



Yarrow. Achillea millefdlium 



