Plants -- Identification; Wild flowers -- Great Britain
The remaining plant of this order is the Small Woodruff or
Squinancy-wort (_Asperula cynanchica_), which is common in many parts of
England and Ireland. Its stem is smooth, sometimes erect with scattered
leaves, and sometimes prostrate, leafy and tufted. It varies in length
from six to ten inches. The leaves are very narrow, usually four in a
whorl, and very unequal. At the upper nodes two of each whorl are often
reduced to mere scales, or are absent altogether. The flowers, which
appear during June and July, are white or pinkish, and are clustered at
the tips of the erect stems. The fruit is small, with a granulated
surface.
[Illustration: THE DWARF THISTLE.]
The Small Scabious (_Scabiosa Columbaria_), of the order _Dipsaceæ_, is
common on the dry heaths of England, and is readily distinguished from
the Devil's-bit Scabious, which it somewhat resembles, by its
deeply-divided leaves and pale purple or lilac flowers. Its stem is
erect, from one to two feet high. The lower leaves are rather crowded,
and usually have a large, oval or oblong, terminal segment, deeply
toothed or lobed, and some smaller ones below it. The stem leaves are
cut into very narrow segments which are either entire or pinnately
lobed. The flowers are in dense, terminal heads, surrounded by a whorl
of short bracts, and intermixed with the little, narrow scales of the
receptacle, the outer flowers of each head being larger than the others,
and very irregular. This plant flowers during July and August.
Of the _Compositæ_ we shall first take the Hairy Hawkbit (_Leontodon
hirtus_), which is very common on moors in most parts of Great Britain,
flowering during July and August. Although known as the _Hairy_ Hawkbit,
this plant is sometimes quite smooth; more commonly, however, the leaves
and peduncles are clothed with thinly-scattered, stiff, forked hairs.
Its leaves are all radical, either oblong or very narrow, with
coarsely-toothed or wavy margins. The flower-heads are solitary, on
peduncles from three to eight inches long, and of a bright yellow
colour. Each head is surrounded by a whorl of about a dozen green,
smooth bracts, outside which are several shorter ones. All the florets
are strap-shaped and perfect; and the fruits, which taper at the top,
are mostly crowned by a pappus of feathery hairs as long as the achene
itself, with a few shorter ones outside. This species appears on Plate
VI, Fig. 4.
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