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However, if we choose, we may easily cultivate a 

 catholicity of taste which at least will exempt us 

 from the danger of one which is prudish.- The Eng- 

 lish use the calendula to flavor their soups, and the 

 leaves are also boiled down in fat for use as a healing 

 salve. The term officinal, it might be well to men- 

 tion just here, is applied to plants which have a com- 

 mercial value, and are commonly on sale. As a rule, 

 many plants have officinal roots ; this is the case with 

 the true sarsaparilla and licorice {Glycyrrhiza glabra). 

 But the calendula is more beautiful than it is useful, 

 and the double varieties are extremely ornamental in 

 the garden ; the petals, or rather corollas, are com- 

 pactly fitted together, and are strap-shaped and resem- 

 ble the close-fitting little feathers on the neck of a 

 bird. What we call the seed of the flower — which is 

 a dry, green, rough, curled-up little thing less than 

 half an inch in length, with a general resemblance to a 

 small green worm — is, botanically speaking, an akene 

 or small, dry, one-seeded fruit which is usually mis- 

 taken for a naked seed. But the akene is evidently 

 more than the seed ; it includes the ripened pistil of 

 the flower, and upon cutting it open the seed, with its 

 shell, is found complete within. The akenes of the 

 calendula all belong to the ray flowers ; the disk 

 flowers are sterile. In the immense Composite fam- 

 ily of which the calendula is a member, all the so- 



