246 FLOWERS OF FIELD, HILL, AND SWAMP 



farmers regard the cone-flower with thorough disapproval, but 

 city boarders fill large jardinieres with the yellow blooms, and 

 love them. 



39 

 Galinsoga parviffbra. — Family, Composite. Color, green- 

 ish yellow. Leaves, thin, 3 - nerved, egg-shaped, pointed, 

 toothed, or entire. Time, spring to autumn. 



A weed found plentifully in the back yards of our city houses. 

 It is on the increase, and is difficult to eradicate. The small 

 flowers have yellow disks and minute white rays. It grows sev- 

 eral inches high, and is smooth and odorless. 



40. W^hite-weed, Ox-eye Daisy. White Daisy 



Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum. — Family, Composite. 

 Color, white. Leaves, cut or toothed. Time, June to September. 



The wonder is that so simple a flower can carry so long a 

 botanical name. This is the common white daisy, dear to city 

 maidens and abhorred by cultivators of the soil. It has come 

 from Europe. The fever-few and marguerite of the gardens are 

 refined types of this aggressive weed. 



The English daisy is pink — " crimson-tipped," as Burns says — 

 and is a near relative of the whiteweed. 



41. Dandelion 



Taraxacum officinale. — Family, Composite. Color, yellow. 

 Leaves, at the root, variously cut. Time, early spring, into 

 summer and fall. 



This is one of the weeds that we love for its bright, golden 

 eye, and because it is one of our first flowers to awake from its 

 winter nap and prophesy of coming spring. It is a native of 

 Europe, but has occupied our American soil as far as to the 

 Rocky Mountains. Its young leaves are eaten. In fruit it 

 forms a round head of evanescent seed, a flower bubble, the soft, 

 feathery pappus being raised on a long beak. 



Many lawns are a mass of golden bloom with the dandelion. 



