6 NATURE STUDY. 



relations. Now as you look out on the plant inhabitants of Cali- 

 fornia you think of these questions and you are prepared to make 

 your beginning with a simple lesson on the first plant you find 

 distributing its seeds. That one of course might be any one of a 

 great number that are at hand. To see what might happen to 

 me in this line were I, to-day, to make a beginning, I have just 

 taken a short walk. This has brought me across a lawn in 

 which are growing a number of dandelions, some in bud, some 

 in bloom, and some with erect stalks bearing the familiar downy 

 globes ready to break up and sail away with the first puff of wind. 

 This dandelion shall be the beginning lesson. 



