FLEA-BANE. 39 



The under-surface is ordinarily more woolly than the upper 

 and though the general effect of the foliage varies accord- 

 ing to its greater or smaller degree of woolliness, it is at 

 best a somewhat dull and greyish green. 



The flowerheads of the fleabane are of a brilliant 

 golden yellow, the florets in the centre or disc being some- 

 what darker in colour than those that are ranged around 

 them. In some specimens these outer radiating parts 

 are more numerous than in our illustration, and give a 

 somewhat more compact and less ragged look to the flower- 

 head, but the form we have portrayed is equally charac- 

 teristic of the plant, and more picturesque in itself than the 

 other. 



The fleabane was the Inula dysenterica of Linnaeus, and 

 it is by this name that most of the older writers and 

 some more recent ones, indeed refer to it; but from details 

 of structure into which we need not here go, a sufficient 

 reason has been felt by Hooker and others to justify the 

 creation of a new genus for this and one other species, and 

 with them it is the Pulicaria dysenterica. The plant 

 .seems to have proved a stumbling-block to a good many 

 who have attempted to find it a place in botanical classifi- 

 cation. Bauhin, Gerard, and Matthiolus all call it Conyza, 

 and we also find Aster dysehtericus and Herba dysenterica as 

 old names for it. As all these names carry some little 

 history and meaning in them, we may with advantage look 

 into their significance. Inula commemorates the heroine 

 of the Trojan war, the plant having been at one time 

 called Helenium, and fabled to have sprung from her 

 tears. Pulicaria is from the Latin Pulex, the vivacious 

 little monster that is commemorated in the first half of 

 the English name, the powerful smell of the plant being 



