COMPOSITE 



have milky, sticky juice, so it is rather troublesome to 

 study them in the school room, but their fruits and the 

 pretty calyxes that cling to them, can be easily watched. 



The thistle is one of the Compositae that has no strap- 

 shaped flowers, and indeed it does not need flowers that 

 exist for show alone, because each one of its tubular florets 

 is, in itself a thing of beauty, with its fluffy calyx and 

 slashed, lavender corolla, tipped with crimson. Like many 

 other Compositae, the thistle provides entertainment for 

 two different classes of guests ; there is pollen for the 

 shorter-tongued insects, and honey served in slender cups 

 for guests of higher rank. Most of our California Com- 

 positae are white or yellow, the most conspicuous colors, 

 and hence the colors most useful in attracting the lower 

 insects ; but the thistle seems to aim to please all classes 

 by offering plenty of white pollen to the common herd, 

 and keeping honey in blue and crimson flowers for bees, 

 humming birds and butterflies. At any rate, these more 

 aristocratic guests do frequent the flowers. 



As the dry season advances, you will find that a large 

 number of the plants that are able to survive, belong to this 

 family, Compositae. You will remember that many of our 

 autumn plants belong here. We could trace their success 

 partly to their ability to defend and protect themselves by 

 means of hairs, spines, thick coats, resinous matter, and so 

 forth ; they have also many clever devices for scattering 

 seed, but -the fact that, in this family, the flowers live 

 close together in flower cities, or communities, has probably 

 very much to do with their success. As a matter of fact, it 

 is by far the most successful of all plant families. Botan- 

 ists tell us that about ten thousand out of the one hundred 

 thousand kinds of known flowering plants, belong to this 

 family. 



Another large family is the Umbelliferae. As the name 

 implies, the flower cluster is like a little umbrella, an 



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