62 FAMILIAR WILD FLO WEES. 



autumn months. The plant is an annual, very spreading 1 

 and branching- in its growth, and attaining ordinarily to 

 about a foot in height, though, like most way-side plants, 

 it varies a good deal in this respect, according to the poor- 

 ness of the soil, the absence of moisture, and several other 

 conditions that are powerful either to aid or mar its develop- 

 ment. The leaves are pinnate, or feather-like in character, and 

 many of the segments have smaller lateral segments given 

 off from them ; a form known botanically as bi-pinnate, or 

 twice pinnate. All the divisions of the leaf are very 

 narrow in proportion to their length, and cross and recross 

 in such appearance of inextricable confusion, that it is only 

 by isolating a few from the mass of foliage that the plant 

 bears that their true form can be satisfactorily identified. 

 The leaves spring- directly from the main stems ; there is no 

 intervening leaf-stalk. The flower-heads are larger than 

 in many of the plants of which we have spoken as bearing 

 some little resemblance to the present species, and are borne 

 singly at the ends of long terminal flower-stems, or 

 peduncles. The central part, composed of the florets of the 

 disk, is a deep yellow in colour, hemispherical in form, 

 and very prominent. The outer florets have very con- 

 spicuous white rays, these being much larger in propor- 

 tion to the disk than in most of the allied species, and lack 

 somewhat of the firmness of appearance that is seen in the 

 corresponding part in the feverfew, for example, where the 

 rays are much broader as compared with their length, and 

 stand around the disk with an appearance of vigour that 

 the present species appears somewhat to want. A rather 

 marked variety of the plant is sometimes found by the sea- 

 shore, and especially in the north; in this the leaves are 

 somewhat broader and fleshy, and succulent in appearance, 



