142 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



nuisance as it may prove itself to the agriculturist, the 

 poor ground in which it grows is perhaps quite as respon- 

 sible for poor success in the crops as any malign influence 

 of coltsfoot ; and where, as in hedgerows and railway em- 

 bankments, the ground is not under cultivation, its presence 

 is a decided gain, as it spots with its golden stars and 

 clothes with its verdure many a piece of ground that 

 would else look poor and bare. To this, its picturesque 

 aspect, must be added its medicinal service, which is 

 by no means insignificant; and these together should 

 remove it from the category of noxious weeds. The 

 leaves are large and of a curiously angular form, that 

 may be familiarly described as heart-shaped in general 

 outline, but bitten into all round, so as to produce a 

 series of sharp points separated by concave curves. The 

 under surface is thickly covered with a white woolly or 

 downy substance, and a little of the same sort of thing often 

 appears on the upper side, but is easily removable when 

 the hand is passed over it. The greater the amount, the 

 greyer of course the effect of the foliage. The leaves do 

 not ordinarily appear at all until after the flowering season, 

 so that the plant presents a very different aspect at various 

 times of the year, being in the spring flower-bearing but 

 leafless, and throughout the summer a mass of flowerless 

 foliage. 



In the early spring numerous flower-stems are thrown 

 up ; each rises directly from the ground, and bears on its 

 summit a single flower. These tufts of flowering stems 

 are about six or eight inches high, erect, bear numerous 

 small scales, and are more or less covered with a loose 

 cottony down. When the flowers close, the stem bends 

 downwards, throwing the decaying blossom into a pendant 



