122 With Feet to the Earth 



plant, which lives for two years, fixes itself 

 stoutly into the earth by a tough, parsnip- 

 like root, six to fourteen inches long, 

 which often projects a little from the 

 ground and sends out slight rootlets. The 

 leaves are green, dull of surface, three to 

 twelve inches long, an inch wide, radiate 

 from the top of the root, rise but little 

 above the ground, are sharply scolloped with 

 points turned towards the root. The flowers 

 spring from the centre of the whorl of 

 leaves. What appears like a single flower 

 is a head of one hundred and fifty bright 

 yellow blossoms held in a cup of dull 

 green sepals, the blossoms strap-shaped, 

 half an inch long and arranged in close 

 spirals. After insects have fertilized them 

 the sepals close over the head, and it re- 

 mains quiet for a week, ripening its seed. 

 Then the stem rises until in four or five 

 days it has lifted it from three to fifteen 

 inches above the surrounding grass, so that 

 the seed can be dispersed by the wind ; 

 for during its quiescence the cup has 

 become a cushion through the turning 

 backward of its edge ; each flower has 



