102 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



high, though on open pasturage and exposed roadsides they 

 sometimes fail to reach the former height, while we have 

 sometimes seen them, when they spring up amidst a shelter- 

 ing hedge or beneath the shadow of trees, attain to a 

 greater height than the two feet we have given as the 

 outside measurement of average plants. 



The form of the foliage is simple, and the outlines are 

 merely continuously waved lines; there are no lobes or 

 serrations. The leaves, too, are always in pairs, and the 

 stem thickens at the points whence they are given off. 

 We see this opposite growth of the foliage and swollen 

 stem in all the campions, and, indeed, in all the members 

 of the order. Garden pinks and carnations supply a very 

 good illustration of this. The bladder campion varies some- 

 what in the size and shape of its leaves, some specimens 

 showing either larger or more attenuated leaves than those 

 we see in our illustration ; but the departure from the type 

 is not extreme in character, and those who have our illus- 

 tration before them will have no difficulty in identifying any 

 specimen of the plant that comes in their way, as it is a 

 very typical piece. The flowers are fairly numerous as 

 they grow in graceful terminal clusters on the summits 

 of the slender stems, and the purity of their colour tends 

 to make them more conspicuous and attractive. It will be 

 noticed that they are ordinarily slightly drooping. The 

 petals are five in number, though each is so deeply cleft 

 that, at a hasty glance, they appear much more numerous. 

 There is often a small scale on each petal at the point 

 where the broad and spreading part terminates, and these 

 form a little ring or crown round the centre of the flower. 

 These little scales may, however, be much better seen in 

 some of the other species, as in the bladder campion they 



