106 WAYSIDE WEEDS. 



you advance in botanical knowledge, you will find 

 the convolvulus tribe noted for many mediciual 

 members, with. wLicli, possibly, you have made 

 acquaintance under less agreeable circumstances ; it 

 is sofficienfr to name ipecacuanha and jalap as pro- 

 ducts of the Convolvulacse, to give you an interest 

 in them replete with painful reminiscences, which 

 may, however, aid in fixing your lesson in your 

 mind. 



We need not detain you with the thrift, 

 further than to bid you examine it for characters 

 similar to the rest of your Handful. Our spiked 

 plantain is not so flower-like as the rest of its 

 companions, that is to say, its blossoms want the 

 size of some, and the bright colours of others of 

 its associates ; but each little floret of the spike is 

 a perfect httle flower, symmetrical and complete in 

 every way, only it has a strange mode with its 

 stamens, which have filaments so long that they 

 require double folding (Fig, 64) in the unopened 

 bud. 



Once more review your Handful, for it is an 

 interesting and instructive one, seeking in each 

 separate plant the general characters which bind 

 its apparently diverse elements together. 



The botanical lesson with which we terminated 

 our third Handful of Wayside Weeds, left us look- 

 ing at the bract of the lime-tree (Fig. 61), and a 

 very distinct and well-marked specimen of a bract 



