266 



HUTCHINSON'S POPULAR BOTANY 



gleckoma). The small yellow flowers which, peep through the tall grass in 

 the corner of the meadow belong to a species of Medicagothe Spotted 

 Clover of Cornish nomenclature, the Medicago maeulata or Spotted Medick 

 of botanists. The little purple spot in the centre of each of its cuneate 

 or wedge-shaped leaflets explains the origin of its specific name. Keep 

 a sharp eye on the hedges for a taller, purple-flowered species of this genus, 

 the Lucerne (M. sativa), whose serrated leaflets offer good examples of the 



oblong form. The flattened 

 apices of the leaflets 

 sometimes have a sharp 

 point about the middle, and 

 then they are called mucron- 

 ate. 



Daisies (Bellis perennis) 

 are everywhere the com- 

 monest of all flowers, yet 

 the flower that is never 

 common! Who of us that 

 loves Nature has not felt 

 something of Chaucer's de- 

 light in what a later poet 

 has called the " wee, modest, 

 crimson-tippet flower" 

 " the little dazy that at even- 

 ing closes " ? gladly con- 

 fessing with him that this 



is of all floures the floure, 

 Fulfilled of all vertue and hon- 



oure ; 

 And evir like faire and fresh of 



hewe, 

 As well in winter as in summer 



newe. 



FIG. 323.-PERFOLIATE HONEYSUCKLE (Lonicera capri- But ifc is the brOad round 



folium), WITH CONNATE LEAVES ; AND PERFORATE leaves, whose margins taper 

 LEAVES OF HARE'S-EAB (Bupleurum rotundifolium). down to the base, rather 



than the pretty pink-tipped 



florets, that we have to notice (fig. 332). They are called spathulate ; 

 though you would probably find on examining other specimens that the 

 leaves more generally incline to the inversely ovate form, like those of 

 the Water-pimpernel. The London Pride (Saxifraga umbrosa) offers a 

 more fixed type of spathulate leaf ; but there is [small chance of finding it 

 growing wild in these parts (fig. 330). 



Before we cross the narrow footbridge and leave the stream at our back, 



