6 NATURE STUDY. 



relations. Now as 3^ou 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 read}' to break up and sail away with the first pufi of wind. 

 This dandelion shall be the beginning lesson. 



