THE ELM, OAK, AND NETTLE 149 
food of the caterpillar of the now extinct large Copper 
Butterfly, and it may reflect that its ancestors supported 
a family whose members are now cheaply bought at £5 
a head. 
As for the Goose-foot clan, with their untidy leaves 
and green spikes of flowers, the most picturesque feature 
is the name, in addition to which one has the cheerful 
epithet of “Stinking,” and, says one botanist solemnly, 
“is to be distinguished by its fishy smell, which is dis- 
gusting in the extreme,’ which always seemed to me 
rather hard on the fish. Another is called “Good King 
Henry,” and I cannot find out why, nor which Henry has 
been selected, whether the victor of Agincourt or “ the 
greatest widower that ever lived.” 
But we must pass on to two very different plants, 
which resemble one another in the flower but certainly 
in no other external detail—the Oak and the Mistletoe. 
We shall meet both again, amongst the forest trees and 
the parasitic plants, but here we may merely consider 
their flowers. The oak bears stamens and pistils sepa- 
rately, each in small catkins, and the pistil has at first 
three seeds within the ovary at the base. Only one of 
these, however, comes to maturity in each of the flowers, 
and it grows, as you know, to a very considerable size, a 
curious contrast to the tiny seed of the elm. The flower- | 
stalk expands at the foot of the seed-vessels; the bracts 
and scales grow together; and the acorn cup is formed 
containing the one seed, or acorn, within it. 
The Mistletoe, which, by-the-by, is very rare on the 
oak, though connected with it in story and legend, is a 
degenerate sort of plant, for it can only live at other 
plants’ expense, although it provides part of its own 
“living. The second whorl of floral leaves is not in 
