184 CLASSIFICATION. 



The radiated division is mostly composed of plants called 

 Corymbiferous (from corymb andfero, to bear), because their 

 flowers are corymbs, as the Chrysanthemum, Aster, &c. This 

 division includes many beautiful flowers, with splendid colours ; 

 and also affords many medicinal plants, as tansy and bone-set 

 (Eupatorium). The colour of the florets in the disk and ray 

 is often very different in these flowers. 



The compound flowers begin to blossom in the latter part of 

 summer, and are found bordering upon the verge of winter. 

 The dandelion is among the earliest flowers of spring, and one 

 of the latest of autumn. The daisy is found in almost every 

 spot which exhibits any marks of fertility. 



The dandelion is not a single flower, like a violet or rose, 

 but a crowded cluster of little flowers. The sun-flower is so 

 large, and conspicuous as doubtless to have frequently attracted 

 your notice. If you would examine one carefully you would 

 find it to' be composed of more than a hundred florets or little 

 flowers, each as perfect in its kind as a lily, having its cotolla, 

 stamens, pistil and seed. 



We distinguish the Sun-flower into two parts, the disk, 

 which is the middle of the* flower, and supposed to have resem- 

 blance to the middle or body of the sun ; the ray is the border 

 of the flower, or those florets which spread out from the disk, 

 as rays of light diverge from the sun. The florets in this, as 

 in other compound flowers, do not all begin to expand at the 

 same time, they usually begin at the disk and proceed inwards 

 towards the centre. 



If you examine with a microscope, one of the florets of the 

 disk, you will perceive it to be tubular, containing one pistil 

 surrounded by five stamens, which are separate, but the five 

 anthers grow together, forming a tube around the pistil. 



It is this union of anthers which gives to this kind of com- 

 pound flowers a place in the class Syngenesia, which name 

 signifies anthers growing together. The florets of the ray are 

 called neutral, having neither stamens nor pistils : the circum- 

 stance of neutral florets in the ray, places the sun-flower in 

 the order Frustranea, of the 17th class. 



Although the term compound is confined to the flowers of 

 the class Syngenesia, the real circumstance on which the class 

 is founded is not the compound character of the flower, but the 

 union of the anthers. A Clover blossom in one sense, may be 

 said to be compound, as it is a collection of many little flowers 

 compounded or united into one ; but each little floret of the 

 clover has its own calyx ; there is no general calyx enclosing 

 the whole, as in most of the Syngenesious plants, but the florets 



Radiated DandelionSunflower. 



