COMPOUND FLOWERS 137 



3. Bristly Borkhausia {B. sefosa). — This plant, found sometimes in 

 clover-fields, has no claim to be considered British. It is a native of Middle 

 and Southern Europe, somewhat similar to JJ. taraxacifolia, but the branched 

 stem is furnished with clasping leaves. 



12. Dandelion {Ledntodon). 



Common Dandelion {L. tardxacvm). — Leaves all from the root, pin- 

 natifid, with the lobes pointing backwards ; flower-stalks hollow, smooth, 

 leafless, and bearing a single head; outer scales of the involucre turning 

 downwards ; pappus stalked and white ; root perennial. If there are some 

 plants which we value for their rareness, because we have sought them long 

 or fetched them from afar, so there are others which delight us by their very- 

 commonness, and which gladden us by their gleaming thousands. Often 

 they recall some touching scene of childhood — of early homes or friends. 

 Such are the daisy and Dandelion, which have these associated charms, inde- 

 pendently of that which belongs to their own beauty of form or hue. Many 

 of us would, under similar circumstances, feel as the author of "Our 

 Antipodes " did when in the Botanic Garden of Sydney. " Some of the 

 producers," he says, " evince their fealty to their native land by exhibiting 

 specimens of her weeds, or, more properly, field flowers, strangers to the 

 colony, and difficult to rear in this climate. I found myself adoring a butter- 

 cup, idolising a daisy, and ardently coveting the possession of a glorious 

 Dandelion, which, classically labelled ^ Leontudon tardxacwm,' occupied one of 

 the high places of the exhibition, and was treated as an illustrious foreigner." 

 A lowly plant it is with us, trodden over by the countryman as he passes 

 through the field, or pressed down by the feet of little gladsome children, on 

 pasture land or sunny bank ; a treasure yet to them — a treasure to all who 

 truly love flowers. It scorns no grassy spot as unworthy of its beauty, from 

 church tower or garden wall, to the shadowy woods or the river's brink — to 

 the pebbly beach, or the crevice of the pavement. It is often the earliest 

 flower of the green mead, sending out a stray blossom even in February, and 

 assembling in multitudes by April and May. 



" E'en when old AVinter leaves his plashy slough, 

 The Dandelions, like to suns, will bloom, 

 Beside some bank or hillock creeping low, 



Though each too often meets an early doom. " 



What a wealth to country children are the Dandelions with their holloAv 

 stalks, linked into chains day after day with untiring eagerness, and with the 

 white downy balls, 



"The schoolboy's clock in every town," 



which come as the flowers fall away, and Avhich sometimes whiten the meadow 

 by their profusion, till a strong gust arises and scatters them far and wide ! 

 Away they float, each white plume bearing onwards the seed at its base, so 

 beautifully balanced that its motion is most graceful, and its destined place 

 in the soil most surely reached. All who notice the exquisite arrangement of 



II.— 18 



