96 THROUGH GLADE AND MEAD. 
ing together around the single pistil, with filaments 
separate; and a single seed to each flower. In the 
lobelias the anthers will be found growing together, but 
the flowers are not in heads; in the teazles the flowers 
are in heads but the anthers do not grow together, so 
that a slight examination will suffice to distinguish any 
member of this great order, which contains at least 
ten thousand species. It includes plants of all habits, 
annual, biennial and perennial, herbaceous and arbor- 
escent. They are met with all over the globe, forming 
varying proportions of the flora in different regions. In 
the island of Sicily they form one-half of the known 
species native to the island, in France about one-seventh, 
in North America about one-sixth. They thrive in all 
soils; some where they are drenched daily by the sea, 
some on dry uplands, some in the forest, some by the 
roadside, some in meadows. The herbaceous forms 
vary in height from three or four inches in the small 
everlastings and dwarf dandelion to six or eight feet in 
the sunflower of the gardens. In Chili many of the 
species of this order are shrubs, on the lonely island of 
Saint Helena some of them are trees. 
This order furnishes a storehouse of species for the 
florist. They swarm in every garden; scarcely a mixed 
‘boquet is complete without them. Asters, chrysanthe- 
mums, daisies, marigolds, dahlias, with hosts of others 
with no common names, belong here, all full of beauty 
and all favorites with some one. 
