Page:Wayside and Woodland Blossoms.djvu/51

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WALL BARLEY.
20

lodicules, which answer to the perianth in ordinary flowers. It would be well to quite master this arrangement by dissection, for all grass flowers are built on a similar plan.

Hordeum is the old Latin name for barley. Flowers June and July.}


Jagged Chickweed (Holosteum umbellatum).


This is a very rare plant, occurring only on old walls about Norwich, Bury and Eye. The rambler in those localities might pass it by as a variety of the vulgar Chickweed, to which, however, it is distantly related. The small white, flowers are arranged in an umbellate manner, though not forming a true umbel. Whilst flowering the long pedicels are erect, but after flowering they hang down; after fruiting they become erect again. Flowers April and May.

Name derived from the Greek olos, all, and osteon, bone, but Artemus Ward would have said it was "wrote sarcastick," for there is nothing suggestive of bones in so soft a plant.


Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale).


Everyone thinks he knows the Dandelion when he sees it and probably he does; but often when he sees a Hawkbit he believes it to be a Dandelion. We may not like to find the Dandelion taking possession of our lawn, but we should regret to miss it from the odd corners by the fence and the roadside. It is a flower of three seasons, for it blooms continuously from March to October, and it is no unusual thing to see its golden flower in winter.

This is a Composite flower, like the Daisy, but whereas the Daisy head was seen to be made up of a host of tubular flowers, with a single outer row of ligulate, or strap-shaped ones, those of the Dandelion are all ligulate. It therefore stands