FLOWERING PLANTS OF THE GKEEN LANES. 247 



optical power, whether applied by a microscope or a 

 good magnifying-glass, so useful or instructive as in 

 botany. Beautiful as most flowers appear even to 

 the naked eye, these beauties are enhanced when 

 gazed at with such larger powers of vision as the 

 microscope bestows. The seeds of our flowering 

 plants are not usually noticed, but if you carry that 

 useful object a pocket-lens about you, you will 

 never be in want of most agreeable employment 



Fig. 178. Fig. 179. Fig. 180. 



Seed of Foxglove. Seed of Great Mullein. Seed of Lousewort. 



when out for a stroll. What plants are not in bloom 

 may be in seed. Those of the Foxglove (Fig. 178) are 

 remarkably elegant ; as are also the seeds of the Great 

 Mullein (Verbascum thapsus), a way-side plant, 

 especially in the eastern and southern counties, so 

 pretty that we have seen it grown in gardens in 

 Lancashire. Its large pale-green leaves, covered with 

 down, so that they look like vegetable flannel, cluster 

 thickly on the ground, and out of them spring a tall 

 spike of canary-coloured flowers, with pink stamens. 



