Then you will see a pretty sight. From the gap in the pod the pretty, silky seeds come spilling out. Their plumes touch each other and hold the seeds together in a soft feathery mass until along comes the breeze. Then one after another the pretty seeds float away and the empty pods are left behind. Sometimes children catch bees in empty milkweed pods. The bees make a great buzzing in the pod, and it is not fair to keep them long, for it interferes with their honey-gathering or pollen-collecting. If there is anything a bee hates, it is to waste time, with so many hungry mouths at home waiting to be fed. Like the thistles, when the milkweed seeds become quite dry they often drop away from their plumes, particularly if they strike against something when sailing about. There are a number of species of milkweeds. One common species has bright, orange flowers, and is called butterfly weed. Its flowers look a little like bright butterflies, and the butterflies are fond of its honey. There is a lovely milkweed in Florida that has large pea-green leaves with broad pink veins running all through them. Some species of milkweeds have long, slender, smooth pods, and very likely you have noticed them along the roadside. [Illustration] LETTUCE. [Illustration: Garden lettuce gone to seed.] Those who have seen lettuce only on the table, or growing in the early spring garden or in the green-house, will feel like laughing at the idea of lettuces flying! Yet they do fly. At least their seeds do. Sometimes lettuces look like rosettes growing out of the ground, and sometimes they look like little cabbages. But that is only the leaves. If lettuces are let alone and not picked, in time they will “go to seed”; a stalk will grow up from the middle, with small leaves on it and a great many little flower heads that look somewhat like tiny dandelions. These flower heads are made like those of the dandelion or thistle. The lettuce has no prickles, but its juice is milky and bitter, and gets more bitter as the plant grows older. The lettuce flowers have akenes like the dandelion, and each akene has a plume like that of the dandelion. Away fly the pretty plumed akenes, and lettuce is thus sown by the wayside. But one seldom sees garden lettuce growing, except in gardens; for it is so tender the strong, rough weeds choke and kill it. [Illustration: Wild lettuce.] There is a wild lettuce, however, that has a large number of flower heads, and of course a great many pretty, silky, tufted akenes. These lettuces sometimes shine as if they had been snowed upon when their silky, white plumed akenes first open out. I advise you to see if you can find some of them next summer. The best place to look is alongside fences and hedges and in the corners of pastures.