CLASS XIX. ORDER Tt. ] SERRATULA. 1057 
the kidneys. In France it is used as an expectorant, and its roots 
are said to be equal to sarsaparilla. 
The seeds enveloped amidst the closely investing hard scales of the 
involucre seem as though they never could escape, but nature has so 
contrived, by means of the hardened hook at the end of the scales, 
that they shall cling and hold so fast to the coats of animals, &c., that 
to separate them is to pull them to pieces, and thus allow the seeds to 
escape and sow themselves! The green plant, when burned, fur- 
nishes a large proportion of alkaline salt, which is the best kind of 
dressing for land. ‘Thus we find a large cumbersome useless looking 
weed is applied to many useful purposes, and when destroyed by fire, 
its ashes furnish a valuable substance for the nutriment of plants. 
This constant interchange of particles arranged under various com- 
binations is one of the most interesting circumstances in the whole 
system of nature; it is the most wonderful, and should excite the 
sreatest astonishment in the power of that Being who has thus arranged 
the universe, and it must be a most salutary lesson to the proud man 
to think that the particles of his body must, like those of this weed, 
be changed into other substances, as they have been before they were 
packed together to form hisbody. Let us, however, ponder over these 
changes, and 
‘ “Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things, 
We shall be wise per force; and while inspired 
By choice, and conscious that the will is free, 
Unswerving shall we move, as if impelled 
By strict necessity, along the path 
Of order and of good. Whate’er we see, 
Whate’er we feel, by agency direct 
Or indirect shall tend to feed and nurse 
Our faculties, shall fix in calmer seats 
Of moral strength, and raise to loftier heights 
Of love divine our intellectual soul.” 
Wordsworth. 
GENUS XXI. SERRAT’ULA.—Linn. Saw-wort. 
Nat. Ord. Composi'tz. Juss. 
Gen. Cuar. Involucrum oblong, imbricated, the scales unarmed, 
acute. Receptacle paleaceous, the scales mostly cut into nume- 
rous linear bristles. Pappus persistent, of unequal rigid scales. 
Named serruda, a little saw, from the fine saw-like serratures of 
the leaves. 
1. S. tineto'ria, Linn. (Fig. 1248.) Common Saw-wort. Leaves 
acutely serrated, lyrato-pinnatifid, the terminal lobe lanceolate ; heads 
