GROUNDSEL. 



Svneclo viilgaris. Nat. Ord., 

 Composite. 



MONGST all familiar wild 

 flowers, perhaps none is more 

 distinctly familiar than the 

 lowly groundsel, the subject of 

 our present illustration. Even 

 the dweller in the town can 

 scarcely be ignorant of it, for, 

 together with the chickweed 

 and the plantain, its sale is 

 one of the recognised street 

 industries amongst the busy 

 haunts of men. It is a very 

 popular food not only with 

 caged birds but with man^ 

 of our common wild species. 

 Its powers of seeding are 

 something enormous, as any 

 one who has a garden knows 

 to his cost. The plant is an 



annual, and is pulled up with the greatest ease, as its small 

 fibrous roots have very little hold of the soil. It would 

 appear then that there need be but little difficulty 

 in effecting its final and complete eradication ; but 

 the plant seeds so freely, and scatters its multitudinous 



