152 



THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. 



it is nothing of the sort, but a city or com- 

 munity of distinct flowers, differing widely 

 from one another in structure and function, but 

 all banded together in due subordination for the 

 purpose of effecting a common object. There is 

 a vast and very varied family of such united 

 flowers, known as the composites ; it stands at 

 the head of the fivefold group of flowering 

 plants, as the orchids stand at the head of the 



FIG. 33. — SINGLE FLORET 

 FROM THE CENTRE OF 

 A DAISY. 



FIG. 34. — SINGLE FLORET 

 FROM THE CENTRE OF A 

 DAISY, WITH THE COROLLA 

 OPENED, MUCH ENLARGED, 



threefold ; and it is so widely spread, it includes 

 so large a proportion of the best-known plants, 

 and it fills so great a space in the vegetable 

 world generally, that I cannot possibly pass it 

 over even in so brief and hasty a history as this 

 of the development of plants on the surface of 

 our planet. 



If you pick a daisy you will think at first 

 si^ht it is a single flower, But if you look 



