34 FLORA OF THE 



the reason which induced the artist to introduce this 

 particular plant into his bas-reliefs. He was struck 

 with its beauty, and with its silvery hairiness, and with 

 its long graceful peduncles, each carrying one flower 

 a foot and a half high. There are several Hieraciums, 

 having only one flower on one stalk, but this is the 

 most striking. 



The reader might ask — how comes it that a plant 

 common on the Assyrian mountains is also found in 

 Greece and Germany ? This is easily explained. Many 

 of the compositae have their small light seeds furnished 

 with a sort of hairy parachute, called a pappus. The 

 wind might carry them not only to Greece and Ger- 

 many, or vice-versa, but to Scotland and even Iceland, 

 and wherever they could germinate and live they 

 would be found ; of course in colder regions they 

 might not be so luxuriant as in warmer ones. 



The description given by Boissier of Heraciiim panno- 

 suui agrees closely with the characters shown by the 

 Assyrian artist,^ making allowance of course for the 

 absence of perspective, which tho artists of those days 

 did not understand, and for the material being stone. 

 Its large compact leaves, globose heads, and very long 

 one-flowered peduncles, leave no reasonable room for 

 doubt that the plant on this monument is the Htcracimn 

 pannosiim, or Taygetuvi of Boissier. 



' For all we know he may have been a Greek artist. 



