THE STUDY OF THE DANDELION. 3 



will mean much more, be better understood and better 

 appreciated, and will better prepare for later chapters, 

 if the reader will take the book out-of-doors, and there, 

 with the dandelions all about him, investigate for him- 

 self. There he will not only best understand the facts, 

 but will discover the spirit in which nature should be 

 approached. 



We will dig up our dandelion, wash off the dirt, and 

 describe it, as many of us have done in our work in 

 botany. 



We find that the root (see Fig. 1) is thick, long, 

 and somewhat tapering (what the botanist calls a coni- 

 cal tap-root), and that it has some thread-like branches. 

 When we cut it across (make a cross-section) we see 

 that a milky liquid exudes, and discover that it has 

 a central cylindrical axis, rather strong or tough, sur- 

 rounded by a lighter-colored, less dense ring. (It is 

 exogenous in structure.) We describe the dandelion 

 root as a tap-root, cylindrical or conical, exogenous, con- 

 taining a milky liquid. 



As the plant has no distinct stem, it may be called 

 stemless. It really has a very short stem, from which 

 the leaves grow. What is commonly called the stem 

 is the flower stem, not the plant stem. 



The leaves seem to grow from the root (hence called 

 radical), no two successive leaves (see frontispiece, 

 Plate 1) growing from the same level (alternate). 

 They are long and narrow (see Fig. 2), with large 

 irregular lobes which are separated almost to the middle 

 line (pinnatifid) and often inclined downward toward 



