IO8 FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



IT is in the midst of a scene like this, in the full-orbed sum- 

 mer, in the peaceful quiet of a season which has got through the 

 hurry and bustle of life, has finished mainly the intense business 

 of growth, the making of flowers and foliage, and just now pauses, 

 a little drowsy with the heat, that the Bur-Marigold may be seen 

 dotting the lowland meadows and swamps with its brilliant flowers. 

 It is a plant of much beauty and interest, and will well repay a 

 close acquaintance. It is a stout herb, from one to three feet 

 high, with smooth, lanceolate, toothed, opposite leaves, bearing a 

 few large, showy flowers, as seen in the plate. 



It belongs to a genus which has some fifty or more species 

 scattered over the tropical and temperate zones, some even being 

 found in the arctic regions. It is a member of that largest order 

 of flowering plants known as the Compositae, plants which have 

 a large number of flowers crowded together in a common recep- 

 tacle or head, like the Dahlia, Dandelion, Marigold, etc. In the 

 other plants each fertile flower produces a seed-vessel containing 

 from a few to a very great number of seeds. In this order there 

 is but one seed to each flower, and no proper seed-vessel at all. 



In the Compositae the individual flowers are necessarily very 

 small, being packed together so closely in the head. But they 

 usually contain all the parts of the true flower. The corolla is 

 contracted into a narrow tube toothed at the top, the stamens 

 adhering together by their anthers from another tube inside of 

 this. The pistil, forked at top, pushes up through the inner 

 tube of anthers, and, having its stigmatic surface covered with 

 teeth-like processes, combs off much of the pollen and so is sure 

 to be fertilized. 



The calyx does not usually develop till after the rest of the 



