55 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS. 



Chickweed (Stellaria media). Plate 54. 



To utilize a blank space we have printed the portrait of the 

 lowly and ubiquitous Chickweed, a plant that has followed 

 English pioneers wherever they have gone about the world. It 

 is thoroughly known to all, but for particulars concerning it 

 and the genus the reader is referred to page 62. 



Fennel (Fceniculum officinal e). 



To see the Fennel in its native haunts we must seek the 

 coast where there are cliffs, up whose face we shall find its tall, 

 stout, jointed stems and umbellate flowers. In this plant we 

 make acquaintance with an important Natural Order, the 

 Umbelliferas, which includes such useful plants as Celery, 

 Parsley, Carrot, Parsnip, Asafcetida, Anise, Dill, Hemlock, etc. 

 The prevailing characteristics of this order are : The stems are 

 hollow ; the leaves, with few exceptions, are divided ; the loaf- 

 stalk at its base expands and forms a sheath to the stem ; the 

 flowers borne on long stalks arranged like the ribs of an 

 umbrella ; the flowers five-parted, the ovary below the petals 

 and stamens, and the fruit what is known as a cremocarp. 



Fennel grows to a height of three or four feet, with a round 

 and tubular, but almost solid stem, quite solid at the joints, 

 and grooved. The leaves are so much divided that the 

 divisions are merely many green threads. The flowers are 

 individually minute, the petals yellow, but to give them greater 

 prominence they are gathered into umbels, and these are 

 arranged in umbels of umbels, or what botanists would term 

 compound umbels. 



The ovary consists of two carpels placed face to face, in each 

 of which is a single seed suspended like a nut in its shell 

 (pericarp}. Each of the carpels with its ripe seed is termed a 

 mericarp, and the entire fruit is a cremocarp. It is hard on the 



