87 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS. 



Burdock (Arctium lappa). 



The Burdock is a plant well-known to artists and boys ; the 

 former being interested in it as a fine foreground plant, the 

 latter on account of its hooked bracts, which make the fruit- 

 head an admirable instrument of torture, or an ornament for 

 decorating some other person's clothes. In its young state the 

 plant is suggestive of the Butterbur, the fine bold lower leaves 

 having a densely cottony underside as in that plant. But 

 there the similarity ends, for in Butterbur there is no rising 

 stem, whereas in Burdock this ordinarily reaches a stature of 

 three or four feet. We encountered a fine specimen near 

 Chessington, Surrey, in June, 18^4, that had reached the height 

 of seven feet three inches, and as it had only just commenced 

 flowering it would probably put on a few additional inches 

 before its growth ceased. The stem is stout, the leaves 

 alternate, heart-shaped, thick. The flowers are in dense heads, 

 like a thistle, but without any spreading rays. The involucre 

 globose, of many leathery bracts ending in long stiff hooks, 

 by means of which the ripe heads become firmly attached to 

 the coats of animals, and the seeds are thus carried far and 

 wide. Corollas, five-lobed, purple. Common in all waste places. 

 Flowering from June to September. According to Hooker this 

 is the only British species, but the " splitters " have made four 

 or more species out of it. 



The name is from the Greek, Arktos, a bear, from its rough 

 appearance. 



Goosegrass or Cleavers (Galium aparine). 



Although Goosegrass has nothing else in common with 

 Burdock it resembles it in the fact that its fruit " sticketh 

 closer than a brother." It is a plant of the hedge, where it 

 forms dense masses, the whole plant - stem, leaves and fruits 



