146 THE DANDELION. 



providential care. The cypsela (4) is pointed and bearded 

 so that when it alights, its pappus still moving to and fro, 

 it works its way into the ground and thus plants itself.* 



The Name^ Dandelion, is a corruj)tion of the French 

 dent-de-lion, from a fancied resemblance of its jagged leaves 

 to the teeth of a lion. The scientific name, Taraxacum 

 Dens-leonis (^«?'«a;«c?^w, disturbance, dens-leonis, lion's tooth) 

 refers to this common notion, and its medicinal effect. 



Classification. — This plant, with the two foregoing, 

 introduces us to the great Order of the Asterworts, called 

 Oo:mposit.e as the flowers are apparently compound. They 

 agree with one another and Avith the whole Order in these 

 seven characteristics : 



1. Flowers collected in inrolucrate heads. 



2. Calyx limb (if any) a dry pappus crowning the ovary. 



3. Corolla of 5 united petals (gamopetalous). 



4. Stamens 5, united by their anthers into a tube. 



5. Stigmas 2, with their styles consolidated into one. 



6. Ovary inferior, 1-ovuled, a cypsela in fruit. 



7. Seed with no albumen. 



The Asterworts embrace 766 genera and 9000 species, growing 

 in all climates and countries, amounting to about one-tenth of the 

 Flowering Plants of the Globe. Over 600 species are natives of the 



* Thus the Dandelion enters the great " struggle for existence " with seeming ad- 

 vantages, but none too many. Its rivals are a legion, each in its own way armed for the 

 strife— a contest more active than ever was waged on any human battle-field, renewed 

 every Spring time in the bosom of the quiet woodland and peaceful meadow. The 

 ground is densely packed with seeds which were strown the previous Autumn, or 

 have been lying dormant, abiding their time, perhaps for years. There is room for 

 only one seed to develop in a spot where there are hundreds of candidates. The sun- 

 shine and heat stimulate them to germination, and then begins the fierce struggle for 

 survival— a contest that knows no pause or cessation until the fittest have conquered 

 and the rest have succumbed. It is literally a death-struggle. No pity is shown for 

 the weak, no regard for the beautiful. 



Nowhere is this life-struggle so reckless as amid the exuberance of a tropical 

 forest. " There," says Orton, " the dense dome of green overhead is supported by 

 crowded columns, often branchless for 80 feet. Individual struggles with indi^^dual, 

 and species with species, to monopolize the air, the sun, and the soil. In their efforts 

 to spread their roots, some of the weaker sort, unable to find a footing, climb a power- 

 ful neighbor and let their roots dangle in the air. while many a fiill-grown tree has 

 been lifted up, as it were, in the strife, and now stands on the ends of its stilt-like 

 roots so that a man may walk under the trunk between thena." 



