WAYSIDE WEEDS. 173 



exslmine it tlirougli your. lens. A three-stigma 

 capped style in the centre is surrounded by six 

 stamensj and these again by six segments of peri- 

 anth or floral envelope^ which are^ as you will see, 

 not petals exactly, but approaching thereto. The 

 blossom of the rush proper you will find is not very 

 different, but in some examples the stamens number 

 three only. 



The bog-asphodel, a first cousin of these rushes 

 and wood-rushes, which has come out in bright 

 yellow, and which holds itself half a foot high, or a 

 little more, on the wet moorland on which it grows, 

 has Tery much the same characters as its relatives ; 

 moreoTer, the capsules or seed-vessels of all are 

 either quite three-celled, or imperfectly so, and 

 three-valved ; thus you see the ternate divisions of 

 the monocotyledons are kept up. 



A rush, and a flowering one, but not a true rush 

 either, we omitted to bid you gather, but it is com- 

 mon enough in some places to make it at least a 

 pondside weed. The handsome umbels of the tall 

 " flowering rush" would indeed set off your hand- 

 ftd, and well illustrate, in all its characters, our 

 present divisions. Knowing these characters, it is 

 sufficient to bid you compare the water plantain 

 and the arrow-head — ^if you have got them — ^with 

 the same standard. There is one plant, the arum 

 or wake-robin (Fig. 104), common enough in 

 England, and commonly known, wHich belongs to' 



