OF PLANTS. 127 
` or more than half the whole flora of the island. In Ma- 
jorca and its companion isles, Cambessedes says they are 
equally plenty. Humboldt reckons every seventh plant 
in France to be one, every eighth in Germany, and every 
fifteenth in Lapland; while in North America he finds 
one in every six, and on the same continent within the 
tropics, fully one half of the whole. The immense sweep 
of this family is not seen in location and numbers only. 
They possess every variety of stature and form. They 
are annuals, biennials, and perennials; the Daisy and 
Dandelion have no true stems at all; the Chamomile and 
the Cudweed are not two inches high, while the Composites 
of St. Helena are chiefly trees. The Hempweed climbs 
over bushes, and the Sweet Golden Rod lies flat on the 
ground. They take possession of all soils; the Marsh 
Fleabane demands the daily drenchings of the sea, the 
Dwarf Dandelion affects the dry shelves of rocky uplands, 
and the Sweet Everlasting is equally pleased with both. 
those of any given division, there is yet no re- 
‘striction or fetter, for if we look at our garden annuals, 
we find the Golden Crepis making a mat upon the earth, 
and the great Sunflower, the most immense of annuals, 
- throwing up its tree-like stem full of enormous flower 
heads, till, without a figure, ies fowls of the air may 
_ lodge in the branches thereof. 
= But how is this royal dee to be aT by the 
= vulgar? How may the common, unbotanical eye, detect 
the badge of such a vegetable nobility? Not without 
some slight examination certainly, yet a slight amount is 
enough. They are called “Composites” or compound 
flowers, and this gives the strong point in the case in a 
word. A Pink or a Potato-bloom is one flower. It has 
only-one set of organs composing it, and its fruit, wheth- 
