194 COMPOSITE 



as this writer narrates, " Fundook swaggered into the kitchen a renovated 

 dog." There can be little doubt that the bitterness, pungency, or aromatic 

 properties of plants like the Chamomiles, fleabanes, and yarrows, have been 

 developed by them in self-defence, to prevent extirpation by browsing 

 animals. The truth of this will be apparent to anyone Avho looks over a 

 pasture and sees a number of such plants standing erect and untouched, 

 whilst the grass has been closely cropped around them. 



47. Yarrow, Milfoil (AchilUa). 



1. Sneeze-wort Yarrow (A. pfdrmica). — Leaves shining, slender, lan- 

 ceolate, tapering, acute, uniformly and finely serrated, the serratures rough 

 at the margin; ray as long as the involucre, 8 — 12-flowered; scales of the 

 involucre with a dark brown membranous border; perennial. This is a 

 very pretty plant of our waste grounds and moist meadows, by no means 

 rare, though not, like the Common Yarrow, a denizen of every greensward. 

 It is tall and slender, the stem sometimes three feet high, though more 

 commonly half that height. This is quite erect, and terminates in a rather 

 large corymb of flowers, of which both disk and ray are white, and each 

 flower often as large as a daisy. The plant is very common on mountainous 

 regions, and blossoms in July and August. All parts have a pungent 

 flavour. When put in the mouth it promotes saliva, in the same way as the 

 pellitory of Spain, and, like that plant, it will often cure toothache. It has 

 been much used medicinally, and in spring its young shoots add a pleasant 

 flavour to the dish of salad. When diied it excites sneezing, and the 

 Highlanders are said to use it as a substitute for snuff. 



A double-flowered variety of the Sneeze-wort is often cultivated in 

 gardens, and called Bachelor's Buttons ; and this with some other species, as 

 A. nana and moschata, are among the plants called Genipa in various Alpine 

 districts. Several of the species grow at great elevations, and many are 

 found on wide extended plains, as on the steppes bordering the Dnieper in 

 Russia, where species of Yarrow, mullein, wormwood, spurge, and thistles 

 are mixed with the tall dry grass, and, being commonly used for firing, are 

 included in the general name of Burian fuel. These flowers render the 

 steppes beautiful during spring-time, covering them for a few months as with 

 an embroidered carpet, but they are soon scorched up by the burning sun of 

 summer. 



2. Dotted-leaved Yarrow {A. decoUrans). — Leaves thick, downy, 

 closely dotted, very narrow, lanceolate, coarsely and doubly serrate, with 

 spreading serratures cut into long narrow teeth at the base ; ray 5 — 6-flowered, 

 as long as the involucre; perennial. Mr. Babington remarks of the 

 leaves of this plant, that they are " not all attenuated, and very different in 

 shape, consistency and sculpture from any of the preceding." The flowers, 

 too, which appear in September, are peculiar in their pale buff-coloured rays. 

 The stem is unbranched, erect, leafy, downy, with axillary leafy tufts. The 

 plant has been reported from Matlock, in Derbyshire, but it appears to be 

 only known in this country as a cultivated plant. 



3. Common Yarrow, or Milfoil {A. miUefdliwm). — Leaves deeply 

 twice pinnatifid, either woolly or nearly smooth ; lobes cut into slender acute 



