EARLY SEEDTIME. 85 



not daisies and dandelions grow everywhere ? But on 

 the whole, as usually happens, the higher type is the 

 most successful of the two. Both largely owe their ad- 

 vancement in life to their serried rows of flowers, which 

 allow the bee or butterfly to pass from one floret to 

 another with ease, and to fertilize many blossoms at once 

 for a very small return in the way of honey. 



All this, however, has very little to do with the dan- 

 delion clock, though it is necessary by way of prelimi- 

 nary to the consideration of those fluffy balls. The clock 

 consists of the rest of the florets after the corolla has 

 fallen off. The lower part, of course, is the seed, or 

 rather the fruit ; but what is the upper part, the little 

 parachute of white silky hairs ? "Well, this curious ap- 

 pendage represents one of the most singular and instruc- 

 tive transformations in all nature. Pull out one of the 

 blossoming florets from the yellow dandelion-head, and 

 you will see it is surrounded by a circular group of small 

 hairs. These hairs are all that remains of the original 

 calyx, which had for its function the protection of the 

 flower from intrusive insects. But when the dwarfed 

 and clustered blossoms of the original ancestor from 

 whom both daisy and dandelion are descended grew into 

 a single compact head, the use of the separate calyx was 

 practically gone, and its place a number of bracts were 

 produced as an involucre around the entire head, sub- 

 serving the same function for the compound blossom as 

 the calyx once subserved for each of its component 

 members. 



Under such circumstances, one of two things must 

 needs happen : either the calyx must become obsolete 

 through disuse or must be preserved by adapting itself 

 to a new function. In the daisy, the first result has 

 come about ; in 'the dandelion, the second. The calyx 



