494 THE CHICORY FAMILY. 



preceding relative. Its leaves then are thin and a bright yellow-green, and 

 also vary greatly in. outline, many being palmately-lobed and cordate and 

 others occurring entire and tapering into a margined petiole. The flower- 

 heads are but five to seven flowered. 



THE THISTLE FAMILY. 



Composites. 



Generally herbs, more rarely shrubs or tropical trees, 7vith perfect 

 flowers grooving closely in a head on the receptacle and surrounded by an 

 involucre of bracts arranged by one or many series. 



Corollas: either tubular, all alike, usually five-lobed or cleft; or having the 

 margined flowers with an expanded limb, or ray. Leaves: opposite, alternate, or 

 from the base, and stems mostly containing a watery, or resinous, juice. 



Many indeed of our common herbs of pasture, our wayside friends, are 

 members of this great tribe and clamour for an entrance through these 

 pages. We can but mention them, as mentally they arise before us. 



White, or ox-eye daisy. Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum, honoured with 

 a different name by almost every child that picks it in England, is now 

 much too well naturalised in this country to overjoy the farmer who has to 

 struggle with its aggressiveness throughout the season. Then there is 

 Tansy Tanacetum vulgare. showing its small golden heads along the road- 

 sides, where no doubt it has escaped from cultivation in the land of its 

 adoption. 



The May-weed or fetid camomile, Anthemis Cotula, with its propensity 

 for straying along the very edges of roadways and again appearing through 

 fields and waste places, is still another conspicuous weed that has become 

 naturalised from Europe. It is thought to be the plant physician in country 

 lore, with the ability to cure those that are sickly when simply placed 

 beside them. 



Also a member of the Thistle family is the great bur or burdock, Arctium 

 Lappa, a coarse biennial or short-lived perennial, naturalised from Europe 

 and now common in waste places. Its bristly bur-like involucres have no 

 beauty ; but little boys find them capital things to throw in their sisters' hair. 



Milfoil, or yarrow, Achillea Millefolium, with its traditionary record of 

 virtue and with dense corymbs of white or, more rarely, pink blossoms, is also 

 from Europe. To make a good turf it has been found useful in the west, 





