From Blue to Purple 



expand and close in apparent ecstasy as he tastes the tiny drop of 

 nectar in each dainty enamelled cup. Coming to feast with his 

 tongue dusted from anthers nearest the nectary, he pollenizes 

 the large stigmas of a short-styled blossom without touching its 

 tall anthers. But it is evident that he could not be depended on 

 to fertilize the long-styled form, with its smaller stigma, because of 

 this ability to insert his slender tongue from the side where it 

 avoids contact. Flies and beetles enter the blossoms, but small 

 bees are best adapted as all-round benefactors. This simple-look- 

 ing blossom, that measures barely half an inch across, is clever 

 enough to multiply its lovely species a thousand fold, while many 

 a larger, and therefore one might suppose a wiser, flower dwindles 

 toward extinction. 



John Burroughs found a single bluet in blossom one January, 

 near Washington, when the clump of earth on which it grew 

 was frozen solid. A pot of roots gathered in autumn and placed 

 in a sunny window has sent up a little colony of star-like flowers 

 throughout a winter. (Illustration, p. 28;) 



Wild, Common, or Card Teazel ; Gypsy Combs 



{Dipsacus sylvestris) Teazel family 



Flowers — ^Purple or, lilac, small, packed in dense, cylindric heads, 3 

 to 4 in. long; growing singly on ends of footstalks, the flowers 

 set among stiffly pointed, slender scales. Calyx cup-shaped, 

 4-toothed. Corolla 4-lobed ; stamens 4; leaves of involucre, 

 slender, bristled, curved upward as high as flower-head or 

 beyond. Stems: 3 to 6 ft. high, stout, branched, leafy, with 

 numerous short prickles. Leaves: Opposite, lance-shaped, 

 seated on stem, with bristles along the stout midrib. 



Preferred Habitat — Roadsides and waste places. 



Flowering Season — July — September. 



Distribution — Maine to Virginia, westward to Ontario and the 

 Mississippi. Europe and Asia. 



Manufacturers find that no invention can equal the natural 

 teazel head for raising a nap on woollen cloth, because it breaks 

 at any serious obstruction, whereas a metal substitute, in such a 

 case, tears the material. Accordingly, the plant is largely culti- 

 vated in the west of England, and quantities that have been im- 

 ported from France and Germany may be seen in wagons on the 

 way to the factories in any of the woollen-trade towns. After 

 the flower-heads wither, the stems are cut about eight inches long, 

 stripped of prickles, to provide a handle, and after drying, the natu- 

 ral tool is ready for use. 



Bristling with armor, the teazel is not often attacked by brows- 



63 



