356 AUTUMN FLOWERS AND FRUITS. 



capsules, which are elevated above ground by the lengthening 

 of the stalks. These leaves are broadly lance-shaped, eight or 

 ten inches long, not unlike those of the tulip, except that they 

 are smooth dark green instead of glaucous. The corms and 

 the seeds of this plant, which is found abundantly in moist 

 rich pastures in various parts of England, are very powerful 

 medicinal agents, extensively employed in modern practice. 



The little family of Restiaceous plants is represented in our 

 flora by a small aquatic tufted plant, found in the Hebrides 

 and in Ireland, and called the Jointed Eriocaulon.^ The plant 

 has a slender rootstock, creeping in the mud under water, and 

 forming tufts of linear, soft, pellucid, beautifully-cellular leaves, 

 one to three inches long, from among which rises the pe- 

 duncle, two inches to a foot high, bearing a head of numerous 

 compact small flowers, the central of which are chiefly males, 

 and the outer ones chiefly females, all intermixed with small 

 bracts, of which the outer ones are rather larger, forming an 

 involucre round the head. The perianth is very delicate, of 

 four segments, with a minute black gland on the two inner 

 ones ; the male flowers contain four stamens, and the females 

 a two-lobed ovary, with two long subulate stigmas. 



A more detailed summary of the flowers of the pleasant 

 autumn season, when vegetation becomes languid with its 

 summer's efforts, will be given in the following pages ; mean- 

 while we may ask with the poet — 



" Who loves not Autumn's joyous romid, 

 Where corn and wine and oil abound ? 

 Yet who would choose, however gay, 

 A year of imreserved decay ?" 



* Eriocaulon septangulare — Plate 21 B. 



