172 COMPOSITE 



2. Least Filago (F. rniniina). — Stem erect, with forked branches ; leaves 

 narrow, lanceolate and pointed, flat, closely pressed ; heads conical, in lateral 

 and terminal clusters, longer than the leaves ; scales cottony, smooth, and 

 slightly blunt at the point; annual. This is a common species of dry 

 and gravelly places, perhaps not truly distinct from the preceding. The 

 yellowish heads of flowers, which appear from June to September, are very 

 small, and the Avhole plant is of a greyish colour, and enveloped in cottony 

 down. Its stem is slender, and from two to six inches high. 



3. Common Filago {F. germdnica). — Stem erect, usually many-flowered 

 at the summit ; leaves downy ; heads terminal, and in the axils of the 

 branches, somewhat globose ; scales of the involucre cottony, with smooth 

 points ; annual. There are several varieties of this plant. One has the 

 heads scarcely angled, the scales of the involucre of yellowish-white, and 

 the leaves oblong or lanceolate. Another has the heads larger, five-angled, 

 the scales purplish towards the tip, the leaves lanceolate, tipped with a spine, 

 grass-green, but with a yellowish down : this is called by some writers 

 F. apiculata. Another form, with the heads prominently five-angled, scales 

 yellowish white, leaves of a leaden grey colour, and tapering at the base, is 

 by some botanists termed F. spathulata. The Common Filago is a very 

 frequent and singular little plant, having at the top of its cottony stem a 

 globular assemblage of heads, from the base of Avhich arise two or more 

 flower-stalks, which are prolific in the same manner. The old herbalists on 

 this account called this the wicked or impious herb (Herba iinpia), as if the 

 young shoots were undutiful to the parent stem by exalting themselves 

 above it. The plant is about six or eight inches high, and flowers in June 

 and July. It grows on heaths and dry gravelly places, and in some of its 

 forms has a faint odour, I'esembling that of Tansy. 



34. Butter-bur (FetasUes). 



Common Butter-bur (P. vulgdris). — Leaves roundish, heart-shaped 

 at the base, unequally toothed, downy beneath ; perennial. In tracing the 

 course of some of those streamlets which sparkle among the bright grass 

 of the summer meadow, or in selecting some quiet little nook of beauty by 

 the riverside, which would serve well for the painter, how often have we 

 paused by some spot enriched by the snowy blossoms of the meadow sweet 

 and the purple flowers of the willow herb, where large masses of the leaves 

 of the Butter-bur lying on the water's brink made an admirable foreground 

 to the picture ! The young duckling from the pool was perchance sheltering 

 itself beneath the broad canopy which served as a screen from sun or passing 

 shower. Even the willow wren, whose wings, one would imagine, might waft 

 it far enough into the very heart of a wood, sought at such moments the 

 ready shelter of this large broad leaf. As an old herbalist once said of it, 

 the leaf is large enough to form the cover for a small table ; and we have 

 seen these green leaves standing on thick stalks a foot long, and very nearly 

 three feet broad. But though the artist would look on their masses with 

 delighted eyes, yet the owner of the pasture land Avould by no means respond 

 to his pleasure. This plant is the most troublesome of all waterside weeds, 

 its long root creeping far into the soil. It so multiplies the plant in wet 



