OF PLANTS. 129 
‘members of this most royal family by these three badges : 
1, flowers collected into a compound head. 2, one sin- 
gle seed to each flower. 3, five anthers grown together 
in a tube round the pistil. 
There are but three other families whose structure 
tends to confound them with these. These marks are 
even more decisive than the thick lip of the Hapsburghs. 
The five anthers of the Lobelids grow together just in the 
way described, but their flowers are never in heads, and ° 
their pods have many seeds. The Dipsacids, or Teazles, 
have flowers gathered in heads in exactly the manner of 
Composites, but the stamens are entirely free from each 
other throughout. Then there is a remarkable little fam- 
ily of herbs in South America, known by no common 
name at all, but we will call them Calycerids. They have 
small simple flowers in heads too, and single seeds, but 
the anthers are separate, or nearly so, while the filaments 
grow together instead. So there is very little need to 
mistake any of these several orders for the true royal line. 
The only plant that commonly meets us with any such 
delusive tendency is the Scabiosa, or Mourning Bride, of 
ae which belongs with the Teazles. It grows and 
beak: Lettuce, Daioni, and TOE are the very 
best it can do in this way; of less account are Chicory 
and Salsify, hardly food at all, either of them. There are 
very few regal houses that boast of less utility. Medicines 
are not wanting among them; Arnica, Wormwood, and 
AMERICAN NAT., VOL. I. 17 
