CYNTHIA DANDELION. 

 THE DANDELION CYNTHIA. 



NATURAL ORDER, COMPOSITiE. 



Cynthia Dandelion, DecandoUe. — Acaulescent; scapes leafless, single, one-flowered; leaves 

 elongated, lance-linear, entire or remotely toothed, rarely pinnatifid, the primary leaves 

 oblong-spatulate. Scapes six to eighteen inches in height, several from the same root. 

 Leaves some of them nearly as long as the scapes, more generally entire ; when pinnatifid, 

 the lobes are two or three on each side, triangular. A variety in the mountainous districts 

 produces at length a short, decumbent stern. (Wood's Class- Book of Botany. See also 

 Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States, and Chapman's Flora of the 

 Southern United States.) 



MONG the best known plants is the DandeHon, and 

 when its yellow buds appear even children hail them as 

 the harbinger of spring. As one of the earliest of spring flowers 

 it has received particular attention. Our own poet, Percival, 

 makes it an especial feature in his well-known "Ode to Spring:" 



" The yellow buds are breaking. 

 The flowers in meadow are blowing; 

 And gentle winds are playing 



Along the grassy vale, 

 Around the airy mountain. 

 And down the grassy vale." 



But the common Dandelion is not a native flower. It came to 

 this country with the white man, soon made itself at home, and 

 is now found wherever cultivation goes. Nor is there any allied 

 species of the genus native to the United States. But, in ancient 

 times, our plant was supposed to belong to the genus Troximon, 

 which is closely related to Taraxacum, the true Dandelion ; and 

 when we see the root-leaves (Fig. 4), and the long, slender 

 achene (Fig. 3), it is not surprising that, in the condition of 



(•41) 



