The Golden Rod 



rays project in a ring, just as if they were the petals 

 of some well-known flower, round a yellow stamen- 

 suggesting centre. It is only when one gathers a 

 Golden Rod stem and begins to pull a blossom to 

 pieces that one realises one's mistake. For each of 

 the blossoms is not a single flower at all, as it seems 

 to pretend at the outset, but a select little colony 

 whose members divide themselves for all practical 

 purposes into two great classes, a very small class 

 that is specially set aside to attract — there are only 

 about five or six aristocrats all told — and a much 

 larger and much less distinguished class that is all 

 herded closely together in the centre of the blossom. 

 The first class, however, is not wholly and solely 

 ornamental, as in the cornflower; we can just 

 discover a tiny fork appearing out of each of the little 

 tubes into which the yellow rays roU down by their 

 base. This is the top of the column from a most 

 minute seed-case, which contains a single still more 

 minute seed. A slight notching can be detected at 



the tip of each ray, which speaks of the union of the 



187 



