YELLOW AND ORANGE WILD FLOWERS 



country to the other, and, notwithstanding its exceeding 

 abundance, the first bright, solitary flowers are always 

 a welcome sight in the spring. Children love to split 

 the smooth, hollow flower stem with their tongues, 

 and make long, spiral curls and ribbons. They also use 

 them for blowing soap-bubbles, and for sipping water 

 from a spring, or by blowing through them, produce 

 funny noises. They have rare fun foretelling the 

 number of children they may have, or even the time 

 of day, by the number of puffs it takes to remove the 

 downy fluff from the round, fuzzy white heads when 

 the flower has gone to seed. In the spring, the leaves 

 are gathered and eaten in immense quantities like 

 spinach, or as a salad, by the immigrant Italians who 

 unwittingly, have established an excellent and popular 

 relish now served in our homes and hotels, and which 

 is pronounced by epicures to be a most wholesome 

 and appetizing salad. The root is ground and roasted, 

 and used like coffee. The root and leaves are also used 

 as a popular remedy for liver complaints, and for 

 dyspepsia; also as a spring tonic. The thick, bitter 

 root is sometimes twenty inches long, and grows deeply 

 in the ground. The long, and extremely variable 

 narrow leaf is irregular, and unequally toothed and 

 notched with the wavy, jagged points inclined toward 

 the stem. Its smooth surface is divided with a wide, 

 thick, pale green midrib. Ofttimes the leaves resemble 

 in outline a series of triangles or arrow heads. They 

 taper toward the base into narrow winged stems that 

 curve to form a pretty flat rosette. As the thick, green 



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