352 AUTUMN FLOWERS AND TRUITS. 



bitten off, whence the vulgar name. The leaves mostly spring 

 from the root, and are stalked, ovate or oblong, entire, nearly 

 or quite free from hairs ; those of the stems are few, opposite^ 

 oblong, and occasionally slightly toothed. The stems grow 

 from one to two feet high, and produce from one to three or 

 five heads of flowers, a pair of flowering branches springing 

 from one or both of the upper pairs of leaves, according to the 

 vigour of the plant. The flower-heads are surrounded by an 

 involucre of two or three rows of lanceolate bracts, the outer 

 of which are as long as the flowers, the inner ones passing 

 gradually into the scales of the receptacle. Unlike those of 

 the allied Teasels, these bracts are not prickly. The recep- 

 tacle bears a globular head of florets, between which small 

 pointed scales are placed. The florets are nearly equal, the 

 outer series being scarcely larger than the others ; they con- 

 sist of an ovary crowned by the little cup- shaped calycine 

 border with four bristle- shaped teeth, a four-lobed tubular co- 

 rolla, four stamens inserted in the corolla tube, and having 

 free anthers, and a long simple style. Each of the florets is 

 inserted in an involucre, which is tubular and angular, bor- 

 dered by very small green teeth, and completely enclosing the 

 ovary and fruit. It flowers towards the latter part of summer, 

 and during autumn. This genus is represented in gardens by 

 the Sweet Scabious or Blackamoor^s Beauty, an annual of not 

 unfrequent occurrence, especially in cottage gardens. 



The Ericaceous family has been already referred to, but is 

 very well illustrated by a favourite autumn-blooming shrub, 

 the Strawberry Tree or Common Arbutus."^ This shrub, 

 which is frequent in hilly districts in the south of Europe, is 

 found abundantly about the Lakes of Killarney, but is even 

 better known as a very ornamental garden shrub, an evergreen 



* Arbutus Unedo—'PMe 23 B. 



