Dandelions 45 



the great composite family. It serves as a public 

 calyx, rilling for the floral cooperative society many 

 duties which are filled by the calyces of solitary 

 blossoms. 



It shelters the florets in their infancy, it helps 

 to guard their nectar from crawling thieves, and, 

 in many species, it screens their pollen from the 

 rain, and encloses and cradles them at night. The 

 calyces thus " thrown out of their jobs," are placed 

 in a position somewhat akin to that of a com- 

 munity of work-people, whose many individual tasks 

 have been taken up and synthetized by some 

 piece of labor-saving machinery. 



They must learn some new way of making them- 

 selves useful, or they will perish following a gen- 

 eral law of all disused organs. 



So throughout the great family of composite 

 flowers we find the calyx of the floret so modi- 

 fied as to help in the great work of plant dis- 

 tribution (Fig. 5). In the bur-marigold it is con- 

 verted into barbed prongs, which fasten onto the 

 passer-by, and force him to aid the plans of the 

 parent plant for placing its offspring in life. In 

 the dandelion and in some of its cousins the calyx 

 is so modified that by means of it the wind is 

 forced to act as a sower. Below each dandelion 



