NOTABLE PLANT FAMILIES 



the Daisy as for the State, and the little composites have found 

 their co-operative system answer so well, that late as was their 

 appearance upon the earth they are generally considered at the 

 present day to be the most numerous family both in species and 

 individuals of all flowering plants." While those of us who 

 know the country lanes at that season when 



*' — ranks of seeds their witness bear," 



feel that much of their omnipresence is due to their unsur- 

 passed facilities for globe-trotting. Our roadsides every autumn 

 are lined with tall golden-rods, whose brown velvety clusters 

 are compossed of masses of tiny seeds whose downy sails are set 

 for their aerial voyage ; with asters, whose myriad flower-heads 

 are transformed into little puff-balls which are awaiting disso- 

 lution by the November winds, and with others of the tribe 

 whose hooked seeds win a less ethereal but equally effective 

 transportation. 



Parsley Family. — The most familiar representative of the 

 Parsley family is the wild carrot (p. 90), which so profusely decks 

 the highways throughout the summer with its white, lace-like 

 clusters ; while the meadow parsnip is perhaps the best known of 

 its yellow members (p. 133). 



This family can usually be recognized by the arrangement 

 of its minute flowers in umbels, which umbels are again so 

 clustered as to form a compound umbel whose radiating stalks 

 suggest the ribs of an umbrella, and give this Order its Latin 

 name of UmbellifercB. 



A close examination of the tiny flowers which compose these 

 umbrella-like clusters discovers that each one has five white 

 or yellow petals, five stamens, and a two-styled pistil. Some- 

 times the calyx shows five minute teeth. The leaves are usually 

 divided into leaflets or segments which are often much toothed 

 or incised. 



The Parsleys are largely distinguished from one another by 

 differences in their fruit, which can only be detected with the 

 aid of a microscope. It is hoped, however, that the more com- 



XXXV 



