156 



dinner time by the closing of the Goafs-beard. In cloudy 

 weather, however, it does not unfold its petals at all. 



" Broad o'er its imbricated cup, 



The Goat's beard spreads its golden rays, 

 But shuts its cautious petals up, 

 Retreating from the noontide blaze." C. Smith. 



In the Midland Counties of England, it is commonly called 

 Hokum PoJcum, and in the spring of the year the peasants dig 

 up the roots, which are a pleasant and wholesome food, when 

 boiled tasting much like asparagus. The head of seeds is one 

 of the most beautiful objects that can be imagined, even more 

 so than the blow-balls of the Dandelion, as each seed is 

 furnished with a star-like crown of most elegantly -branched 

 feathers, and altogether they form a head as round and as large 

 as a cricket ball. 



O. S. Purple Goafs-beard or Salsafy, rather rare. 



LETTUCE. LACTUCA. 

 IVY-LEAVED LETTUCE. WALL LETTUCE. Lactuca muralis. 



Plate 12, fig. 4. 



A very common plant on both waste and cultivated grounds, 

 on rubbish and on walls ; it grows upright, two or three feet 

 high, with a much branched head of small, yellow flowers, 

 inclosed in a long calyx, with a few scales underneath, which 

 form a second calyx. The stalks that bear the flowers have 

 ovate, very small bracts, and they are very irregular in position^ 

 some of them grow upright, others downward some straight, 

 and others curved. The flowers are small, yellow, of one row 

 of florets only, the corollas of which are strap -shaped, and 

 with four or five teeth at the end. Leaves clasping the stem, 

 and very curious in shape. The smaller ones are arrow-shaped, 

 but very much and deeply notched, and with a broad, leafy, 

 winged foot-stalk. The lower leaves are larger, longer, and 

 have two or three leaflets, or larger lobes on the winged stalk. 

 All the leaves are very thin, delicate, and of a light green, 

 sometimes hairy, at others smooth. 



O. S. Strong-scented Lettuce, which is poisonous the Prickly Lettuce, 

 and Least Lettuce, both of them of the same properties as the Garden 

 Lettuce, that is, producing sleep. They all yield a milky juice, and close 

 their flowers during the night. 



