CHAPTER XVII. 
PARSLEYS, WILD ROSES, AND CLOVERS 
In the next three chapters we shall give a rapid glance 
at all those English flowering plants which have free 
petals, or, where the corolla has disappeared, as in the 
Common Celandine, free sepals, no longer joined into 
a single tube, but each separable. Generally both sepals 
and petals are separate, but in many tribes the calyx 
is united, and you may consider this either as a sign 
of progress or not, according as you may decide that the 
tube-flower is a higher or lower state. 
The first great class with which we have to deal is that 
which is well represented by the various wild Parsleys. 
If you have done any plant-hunting at all, you will need 
little description of the general type of the plants. The 
finely-divided leaves, the flat heads of many small 
flowers, usually white, sometimes yellow, each on a short 
stalk, the whole set of stalks meeting close below the 
flowering head, are in almost every case very well marked, 
and one can promptly decide that our novelty belongs to 
the Umbellifere, or umbrella-bearers. The worst of it 
is that, though the family is clearly enough marked 
out, this same general likeness makes it very hard to 
tell one species from another, and the young collector is 
rather liable to give up his task in disgust, and content 
178 
