THE FIELD SCABIOUS. 67 



known privet), about five inches long and barely one 

 inch broad, and their margins cut on either side into some 

 seven or eight bold serrations. The leaves that 

 immediately succeed them are of about the same length, 

 but possess the character shown in our illustration, though 

 in many cases the intervals between the lateral lobes are 

 not so great, and in some instances the terminal lobe is 

 decidedly larger than any of the others. The flowers of 

 the field scabious are all terminal, and borne on long 

 stalks. The heads are large, and in general outline con- 

 vex. The outer florets in the flower-head are large, and 

 have very unequal segments. The inner florets are much 

 smaller, but all are cut into four lobes or segments, those of 

 the inner florets being equal in each floret. The buds packed 

 tightly yet with beautiful regularity before any of them 

 have expanded form a very quaint and interesting feature. 

 The character of the supporting ring of floral leaves or 

 bracts beneath the flower-head, which in botanical language 

 is called the involucre, can be very clearly seen in our 

 illustration, as we have purposely turned one of the flower- 

 heads from us to display the appearance of the back or 

 under part of the flower-head. In this view we see only the 

 radiate bracts of the involucre, the form that by the older 

 botanists was in such cases called the common calyx, and 

 the larger segments of the outer ring of florets. In 

 the deviFs-bit scabious, the outer florets are scarcely 

 larger than the inner, and in the small scabious the florets 

 are five-lobed. The stamens of each floret of the field 

 scabious are four in number, and, from their length and the 

 size of the anthers, form a conspicuous feature. The fruit 

 is rather large, somewhat four-cornered, and crowned by 

 several short bristly hairs, that radiate fan-like from its 



