Wild-Flower Sttidy 593 



can you see the cup-shaped calyx? How many petals has it? Can you 

 see its five anthers and its two white pistils? 



3. Take one of the outer florets of the outside cluster; are all its 

 flowers the same shape? How do they differ? Where are the florets 

 with the large petals placed in the big flower-cluster ? How does this help 

 to make "the pattern?" 



4. Do the outside or the central flowers of the large clusters open 

 first ? Can you find a cluster with an almost black or very dark red floret 

 at its center? Is this dark flower a part of one of the little clusters or doesi 

 it stand alone, its stem reaching directly to the main stalk? Do you 

 think it makes the flowers of the Queen Anne's lace prettier to have this 

 dark red floret at the center? 



J. Take a flower-cluster with the flowers not j'et open. Can 3'ou see 

 the threadlike green bracts that close up around each bud ? Can you see 

 finely divided, threadlike bracts that stand out around the whole cluster? 

 What position do these bracts assume when the flowers are open ? What 

 do they do after the flowers fade and the seeds are being matured? 



6. What is the general shape of the seed-cluster of the wild carrot? 

 Have you ever found such a cluster broken off and blowing across the 

 snow ? Do you think this is one way the seed is planted ? 



7. Examine a single seed of the wild carrot with a lens. Is it round 

 or oblong? Thin or flat? Is it ridged or grooved? Has it any hooks or 

 spines by which it might cling to the clothing of passers-by, or to the hair 

 or fleece of animals, and thus be scattered more widely? Does the seed 

 cling to its stem or break away readily when it is touched ? 



8. Take one seed-cluster and count the number of seeds within it. 

 How many seed-clusters do you find on a single plant? How many 

 seeds do you, therefore, think a single plant produces? 



9. What should j^ou consider the best means of destroying this pro- 

 lific weed? 



10. What do you think is the reason that the wild carrot remains 

 untouched, so that it grows vigorously and matures its seeds in lanes and 

 pastures where cattle graze? 



1 1 . Have you noticed any birds feeding on the seeds of the wild carrot ? 



I do not want change: I want the same old and loved things, the satne wild flowers, 

 the same trees and soft ash-green; the turtle-doves, the blackbirds, the coloured yellow- 

 hammer sing, sing, singing so long as there is light to cast a shadow on the dial, ' 

 for such is the measure of his song, and I want them in the same place. Let me find ; 

 them morning after morning, the starry-white petals radiating, striving upwards to their 

 ideal. Let me see the idle shadows resting on the white dust; let me hear the humble-bees, and 

 stay to look down on the rich dandelion disc. Let me see the very thistles opening their great 

 crowns — / should miss the thistles; the reed-grasses hiding the moor-hen; the bryony bine, at 

 first crudely ambitious and lifted by force of youthful sap straight above the hedgerow to sink 

 of its own weight presently and progress with crafty tendrils; swifts shot through the air with 

 outstretched wings like crescent-headed shaflless arrows darted from the clouds; the chaffinch 

 with a feather in her bill; all the living staircase of the spring, step by step, upwards to the 

 great gallery of the summer — let me watch the same succession year by year. 



— "The Pageant of Summer," by Richard Jefferies. 



