^ ,>:' 
During this week 
of retirement the 
stem continues to 
wither sideways, 
and the flower is 
busy ripening its seeds, each 
yellow floweret having a seed 
of its own, from which there 
grows a slender hair-like stalk 
with a tiny feathered parachute 
at its top. Gradually these lit- 
tle feathery ends push upward 
inside the calyx, and on the 
seventh day, lo ! the withered 
dandelion has appeared again 
at the top of the grass. It now has a tiny brown 
cap at its top, or perhaps has just lost it, and gives 
us a glimpse of a white feathery tuft peeping 
from its top. This little brown withered cap is 
all that is left of the original golden blossom of 
two weeks before, now a shrivelled mass, which 
