12 SPRING FLOWEKS. 



(b) This monopetalous corolla either epigynous, bearing the 

 stamens ; or altogether distinct from the stamens ; or 

 hypogynous, bearing the stamens. 



Of the first of these subdivisions we have some early-flower- 

 ing examples in the family of Composites, or Compound flowers. 

 Among them is the common, well-known, golden-flowered 

 Dandelion,* to be found everywhere, and combining in itself 

 the characters of a gay spring flower, a troublesome weed, and 

 a valuable remedial agent. This plant has a thick, fleshy tap- 

 root, from the crown of which spreads a tuft of oblong run- 

 cinately pmnatifid leaves, among which spring up numerous 

 hollow peduncles, bearing, not a large yellow flower as is the 

 vulgar notion, but a head of numerous yellow flowers of pecu- 

 liar character. It is the fact of their bearing numerous flowers 

 in one head, and so as to seem to constitute a single flower 

 only, that has procured for the large family to which the Dan- 

 delion belongs, the name of Composites, or Compound flowers. 

 Let us examine one of these a little more closely. At the top 

 of the stalk are two or three rows of crowded green scaly 

 leaves, of which the innermost are erect, and the outer ones 

 recurved ; these constitute the involucre or guard -leaves, which 

 in the Composite plants are always found surrounding the 

 flower-heads, and the parts of which are called bracts or scales. 

 The top of the stalk is expanded into a broadish flattened sur- 

 face, which the involucral leaves fence round, and on this sur- 

 face, which is called the receptacle, the flowers are closely packed 

 side by side. The Dandelion belongs to a group of Composites 

 in which the flowers are all alike all ligulate or strap-shaped, 

 and hence the group has been named Ligulates. Take up one 

 of the flowers, they are here properly called florets, or little 

 flowers, and let us see of what it consists. At the base is a 



* Leontodon Taraxacum Plate 3 B. 



