COMPOSITE 343 



Composite 



Nature in ordering her floral display has a prodigal 

 habit of sacrificing quality to quantity; the larger the 

 order, the fewer often, speaking comparatively, the 

 number of high-bred beauties. Aristocracy and bour- 

 geoisie are antipathetic. And the Composite are essentially 

 a bourgeois wilderness. Even the Jlster, Arnica and 

 "Doronicum have something blowsy or blatant to taint their 

 unquestioned merits. Leontopodium is a practical joker; 

 Gnaphalium, Jlchillea, Centaurea and Jiieracium indecently 

 prolific; the majority of the remainder weedy and utili- 

 tarian. For, to grant them their true value, many are 

 excellent food-stuffs ; for example the young roots or 

 leaves of Scorzonera, Salsafy, Lettuce, Chicory or 

 Dandelion. Others are medicinal, secreting, like all 

 Composite or Synantherae, a milky juice, usually bitter 

 and resinous, occasionally narcotic. Wild Chicory is a 

 laxative, the large-rooted variety also familiar in the truly 

 bourgeois role of adulterant in coffee. Lactuarium a 

 product of the poisonous Lactuca is celebrated as sedative 

 and hypnotic and the tale may be continued, a tale to 

 be read in my volume le Jardin de l"Herboriste, except 

 that a chapter should be added on the tonic value of 

 Elecampane or Inula, whose root is sold in the Geneva 

 market for its weight in gold. Even old Horace tells of 

 it as the material of an aromatic sauce for lampreys. The 

 characteristics of the order are : herbs, rarely shrubs and 

 still more rarely trees, with leaves (except in Arnica) 

 alternate and, as a rule, deepy cut, without stipules; 



