COMPOUND FLOWERS 1G3 



with their dry fringed margins, in one row only. All the florets are yellow, 

 the outer ones, of which there are from four to six, rayed. Plant annual. 

 This plant is not British, but in recent years it has become quite naturalized 

 about cultivated fields, chiefly in the counties of London, Middlesex and 

 Surrey, where its flowers may be seen from July to October. It was intro- 

 duced from Peru, and has taken so kindly to English soil that it has become 

 an absolute pest in some of the market-gardens on the outskirts of London. 



26. Cotton-weed (Diotis). 

 Seaside Cotton-weed (D. marltima). — Leaves oblong, blunt ; heads of 

 flowers small and terminal ; perennial. This is a rare plant of the sandy 

 sea-shore, with small white heads thickly set with leaves, and both stem and 

 foliage so covered with down as to look as if they had on them a thin coating 

 of lint ; and among this crowd of leaves and the scales of their own cups, the 

 little yellow blossoms are almost hidden. The plant is about a foot high, and 

 is in flower from August to September. Its roots run far into the sand, and 

 its branched stems are very brittle. It is found principally in the east and 

 south-east of England, in some localities growing plentifully. It is slightly 

 bitter and aromatic ; a larger species, found in the East Indies (Didlis candid- 

 issima), is very powerfully so, and is used medicinally. 



27. Tansy {Tanadtum). 

 Common Tansy [T. vidgdre). — Leaves twice pinnatifid, cut; flowers 

 in a terminal corymb; perennial. The Tansy sometimes grows on field- 

 borders and road-sides, and is often found in great luxuriance on banks by 

 the sea, as at Sandgate, in Kent, or on river-sides, as on the shores of the 

 Avon. Its yellow flowers, during June and July, stand like masses of golden 

 buttons among its dark green, prettily cut foliage. The stem is about two or 

 three feet high, and the whole plant is bitter and aromatic, and useful in 

 medicine. Some persons like its flavour, but to most it is so disagreeable that 

 we wonder not that it was selected for eating at Easter season as a representa- 

 tive of the bitter herbs commanded to be taken with the Paschal lamb. One 

 can well understand how cakes made of this plant, and called Tansies, might 

 have been eaten for the purpose of mortifying the appetite, or intended, by 

 their somewhat tonic properties, to sustain the strength during a season of 

 fasting ; but that Tansy puddings should be relished as a pleasant food, and 

 Tansy omelets prized as delicacies, seems strange to the many who dislike the 

 taste of the plant. An allusion in a poem of the seventeenth century proves 

 that the Tansy cake was regarded as a sweetmeat : — 



' ' At stool-ball, Lucia, let us play, 

 For suij;ar cakes or wine ; 

 Or for a Tansy let us pay, 

 The loss be thine or mine." 



It is probable that the flavour of Tansy was more generally liked in former 

 times than in ours. Gerarde says : "In the spring-time are made with the 

 leaves hereof, newly sprung up, and with eggs, cakes or tansies, which be 

 pleasant in taste, and goode for the stomacke. The roote preserved with 

 honey or sugar is an especial thing against the gout, if every day for a 

 certaine space a reasonable quantitie thereof be eaten fasting." 



21—2 



