FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   >>  
e indented leaves that the Dandelion gets its name. The leaves have something the appearance of the teeth of a lion. Now the French name for lion's tooth is _dent de lion_, and we English have corrupted this into _dandelion._ Each flower-stem is round and, when we pull one, we see that it is a hollow tube. We bite a piece of the stalk as we did with the Clover blossom. What a difference! The Clover was quite sweet, but the Dandelion is very bitter. You may not like the taste perhaps, but the white milky-looking juice is quite wholesome. Dandelion tea and Dandelion beer are often made by country people, and the leaves give a pleasant flavour to a salad. Shall we pull up a plant and examine the root? I am afraid we cannot, unless you care to go back to the house for a fork or a trowel. The Dandelion has a very long strong root--tap-root--which goes deep into the ground; and there is no tall main stem of which we can take hold--the leaves and flower stalks only break off in our hands. Here is a stalk from which the flower has fallen, leaving only the seed. Of what does it remind you? Of the Traveller's Joy in autumn? Yes; the Dandelion has what is called a "pappus" attached to its seed, rather similar to the feathery tail of the Traveller's Joy. This makes the Dandelion a troublesome weed; the seeds are easily carried by the wind and, if a patch of dandelions is allowed to go to seed, it will produce fresh plants quite far away. Before the seeds are scattered each head is like a round white fluffy ball. Here are daisies, with their dainty white florets often tinged with pink. In the centre of each blossom is a yellow spot. Every night the white florets fold up over the yellow centre, and do not open until the morning. This fact explains to us the Daisy's name; it is the Day's Eye which opens at dawn and shuts at night. The Daisy is a little flower which everyone knows and loves, yet in the wrong place it is a weed. It is a perennial and it spreads very fast. Of course both perennials and annuals spread by means of their seed, but perennials also spread in other ways as well. We will see how the Daisy does this. There; with my pocket knife I have easily dug up a plant. The root is small and compact, not long like that of the Dandelion. But, when I try to lift the Daisy plant from the grass, I find that it is still held down by a stout tough thread branching from the root. This thread is connected with another D
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   >>  



Top keywords:
Dandelion
 

flower

 
leaves
 

yellow

 
centre
 
florets
 
thread
 

spread

 

perennials

 

Traveller


easily

 

blossom

 

Clover

 

morning

 

plants

 

explains

 

Before

 

scattered

 

tinged

 

dainty


French

 

daisies

 

fluffy

 

appearance

 
compact
 
pocket
 

branching

 

connected

 

perennial

 

spreads


produce

 
indented
 
annuals
 

carried

 

afraid

 

examine

 

strong

 

hollow

 

trowel

 
flavour

wholesome
 
bitter
 

people

 

pleasant

 
country
 

difference

 

similar

 

feathery

 

attached

 
called