94 NATURE IN A CITY YARD 



plant! Left to itself, it may heighten its 

 beauty or take on strangeness. Hamilton 

 Gibson said that he once found a head 

 of yarrow blossoms that was surrounded 

 with rays like a daisy or a camomile. 

 The foliage of yarrow and camomile are 

 so alike that it is easy to mistake the one for 

 the other ; but pinch a leaf of each to ex- 

 tract the smell, and the difference is plain : 

 the camomile is rank and herby, the yar- 

 row spicy and nutty. The flowers are 

 widely different, and the camomile is of- 

 ten called a daisy by city folks because it 

 is yellow with white rays. 



What a wonder it is that people who 

 like flowers do not make more of the wild 

 ones ! Take the dandelion, noblest of the 

 early blooms, and the only fearless one, 

 and what might not be made of it ? Fancy 

 a window full of these golden disks in win- 

 ter! I chose one of these plants out of 

 half a hundred in our yard one spring, and 

 made an aristocrat of it for a month, not 

 taking it from its place, but merely giving 

 it extra attention. It had manure-water 

 now and then, it was sprinkled every even- 



