140 



THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. 



and function, but all banded together in due sub- 

 ordination for the purpose of effecting a common 

 object. There is avast and very varied family of 

 such united flowers, known as the composites; it 

 stands at the head of the fivefold group of flower- 

 ing plants, as the orchids stand at the head of the 

 threefold ; and it is so widely spread, it includes 

 so large a proportion of the best-known plants, 

 and it fills so great a space in the vegetable world 

 generally, that I cannot possibly pass it over even 



Fig. 33. — Single floret from the 

 centre of a daisy. 



Fig. 34. — Single floret from the 

 centre of a daisy, with the co- 

 rolla opened, much enlarged 



in SO brief and hasty a history as this of the de- 

 velopment of plants on the surface of our planet. 

 If you pick a daisy you will think at first 

 sight it is a single flower. But if you look closer 

 into it you will see it is really a great group of 

 flowers — a compound flower-head, composed of 

 many dozen distinct blossoms or florets, as we 

 call them (Fig. i^). These, however, are not all 

 alike. The florets in the centre, which you took 

 no doubt at first sight for the stamens and pistils, 

 are small yellow tubular blossoms, each with a 



