"And doesn't the bloom of a blackberry look like the bloom of a plum, and a cherry, and a pear, and an apple, and all those things?" "A good deal," said Prue, "and wild crab blossoms look just like little wild roses, and they smell so sweet, too." "And the wild crab has thorns like a rose, only not so sharp," said Davy. [Illustration: "DON'T YOU THINK THE BLACKBERRY LOOKS A LITTLE LIKE A WILD ROSE?"] "And a rose has little apples after the bloom falls," said the Chief Gardener. "I have known children to eat rose apples, though I don't think they could be very good." Davy had run down to the corner of the garden and came back now with something in his hand. It was a wild rose that grew by the hedge there; a pretty, single pink blossom. Then he stopped and picked a strawberry bloom, and one from the apple-tree that hung over the fence. These he brought over to the little bench where Prue and the Chief Gardener had sat down to rest. The Chief Gardener took them and held them side by side. "There, you will see they are all very much alike," he said. The children looked at them. Then Prue ran across the lawn and came back with a little yellow bloom. "Isn't this flower one of them, too?" she asked. "Some people call it wild strawberry, and some sink-field." "That," said the Chief Gardener, "is cinque-foil. I suppose the name sink-field comes from that. It is French, and means five-leaved, but sink-field is not so bad a name either, for it often grows in moist places. Yes, that is a rose, too." "Then buttercups must be roses," said Davy. "They look just like that." "No, Davy, that is one place where our eyes must look sharp. Can you find a buttercup?" "Oh, plenty," said Prue, and ran to bring them. Then the Chief Gardener took a buttercup and an apple-bloom, and held them side by side. There was a difference, but not very great. Then he took his knife, and divided the blossoms in half. "Now look again," he said, and he took a small magnifying-glass from his pocket and held it so that they could see. "The petals and the sepals (that make the corolla and the calyx, you know) are a good deal the same," he said, "but, you see, there are many more stamens in the buttercup, and then the seed pod or pods, which we call the pistils, are not at all alike. The buttercup has a lot of tiny pods or pistils inside the flower, while the apple-bloom has one round pod below the flower, and this forms the fruit. The buttercup does not make fruit. It belongs to the Crowfoot family, and is a cousin of the hepatica and of the larkspur, which you would not think from the shape of the larkspur's bloom. The Crowfoot family is not so beautiful nor so useful as the Rose family, which is, perhaps, the most useful family next to the Grass family, and certainly one of the most beautiful families in the world." "I think the Rose family is nicer than the Grass family," said Prue.