578 



Handbook of N ature-Study 



Observations — i. Where does the pearlyeverlasting grow? Do cattle 

 eat it? Why is this? What is the general color of the plant? What 

 is the stem covered with? 



2. What is the shape of the leaves? How are they veined? With 

 what are they covered? How are they placed on the stem? What is the 

 relative size of the lower and upper leaves? Why is there a difference? 



3. Do you see some plants which have egg-shaped blossoms, each 

 with a yellow knob at the tip? Take one apart and look at it with a 

 lens, and see what forms the white part and what forms the yellow 

 knob. Do you see other flowers that look like little white birds' nests 

 filled with yellow eggs ? Look at one of them with a lens, and tell what 

 kind of a flower it is. 



4. Except that the pistillate and staminate flowers are on different 

 plants, the flowers of the pearly everlasting should be studied according 

 to Lesson CXXXV. 



5. What do you know of the edelweiss of the Alps? How does it 

 resemble the pearly everlasting? Do you know another common kind of 

 everlasting called pussy's toes? 



THE JEWELWEED, OR TOUCH-ME-NOT 



Teacher's Story 

 "Cup bearer to the summer, this floral Hebe shy 

 Is loitering by the brookside as the season passes by; 

 And she's strung her golden ewers with spots of brown all flecked. 

 O'er dainty emerald garments, like a queen with gems bedecked. 



She brooks not condescension frotn mortal hand, 



you know, 

 For, touch her e'er so gently, impatiently 



she'll tJirow 

 Her tiny little jewels, concealed in pockets 



small 

 Of her dainty, graceful garment, and o'er the 



ground they fall." 



— Ray Laurance 



EWELS for the asking at the brookside, 

 pendant jewels of pale-gold or red-gold and 

 of strange design ! And the pale and the 

 red are different in design, although of the 

 same general pattern. The pale ones seem 

 more simple and open, and we may study them 

 first. If the flowers of the jewelweed have been 

 likened to ladies' earrings, then the bud must 

 be likened to the old-fashioned ear-bob ; for it is 

 done up in the neatest little triangular knob 

 imaginable, with a little curly pig-tail appendage 

 at one side, and protected above by two cup- 

 shaped sepals, their pale green seeming like ena- 

 mel on the pale gold of the bud. It is worth 

 while to give a glance at the stem from which 



