THE WATER-RAGWORT. 119 



in such detail as would make our remarks of any real 

 service. 



The general features noticeable in the water-ragwort 

 are as follows : Foliage alternate in arrangement on the 

 stem, dark green, deeply cut ; the stem ordinarily about 

 two feet high one help towards its identification, for in 

 the S. Jacobcea the stems are often three feet high ; the 

 lower portions of the stems are often very pure and brilliant 

 pink, or even crimson. I also branches and spreads more 

 than in the other species r amed ; the individual flowers are 

 larger also, and the growth of the corymb, as the form of 

 inflorescence is termed, is looser and more irregular. Strictly 

 speaking, each so-called flower of popular parlance is an 

 aggregation of a great number of florets into what should 

 more properly be termed a flower-head; and the same remark 

 applies to what is familiarly called a dandelion or a daisy- 

 flower; it is in each case a mass of small blossoms gathered 

 into one whole. The corymbose inflorescence is the form 

 produced when the stems bearing the lower flowers are 

 much longer than those nearer the summit, so that, 

 roughly speaking, the flowers all come to one level. The 

 water-ragwort is a perennial. 



The genus Senecio, to which this plant belongs, is the 

 largest of the numerous genera into which the great compo- 

 site family is divided. Eleven species of Senecio are found 

 in Britain, some, like the groundsel (S. vulgaris), and the 

 present plant, are abundantly met with, while of the others 

 some are rare and very local in their range. All the 

 British species have yellow flowers. The various kinds of 

 garden cinerarias, as the florists call them, all belong, too, 

 to this same genus : the lowly groundsel, that springs up 

 everywhere in the garden, and the greenhouse plant so 



