24 NATURE STUDY. 



which we can never discover from a mere pulling to 

 pieces for analysis and description. Let us mark sev- 

 eral buds and flowers with a string or label, and note 

 carefully, two or three times a day, the changes in them. 

 We shall see the lengthening of the scape and the pro- 

 tective closing of the flower, and the changes in the 

 length of the bracts. We may note the numerous insects 

 which visit the blossom. We shall discover that after 

 the blossom finally closes, the yellow part shrivels, is 

 lifted up, and at last drops off. At the same time the 

 hairy pappus is very gradually pushed up, at length pro- 

 truding above the bracts (as in frontispiece, Fig. A, 3), 

 the hairs of the pappus, lying pressed close together, 

 separate, somewhat as an umbrella opens, the bracts are 

 bent outward and downward or reflexed, and the hairy 

 stems supporting the pappus of each flower diverge, and 

 we have the spherical fruit of the dandelion. Why? 

 How? 



As we watch this in the wind, or imitate the children 

 as they try to discover, by blowing the seeds, " what 

 time it is," or whether " mother wants me," we see the 

 seeds sail away, each with its little parachute, settle 

 down, and gradually work down into the grass. 



Are the yellow blossoms, the "seals of gold in the 

 meadows," "bright as if Night had spilt her stars," are 

 they merely " flowers arranged in a close head, with an 

 involucre of three rows of imbricated bracts " ? Why 

 lifted up so high ? Why such a bright color ? Why 

 and how do they open and close ? How do they per- 

 fect their seeds, and lift up and spread out their 



