The dandelion is worthy of attention. The origin of its common name has given rise to some little discussion. That it is a corruption of the French _dents de lion_ is very generally accepted; but in spite of varying opinions as to what part of the plant resembles a lion’s teeth—whether its roots, by their whiteness, or its florets or leaves, by their indentations, we incline to the leaf theory. The circumstance to note in connection with the leaves is that their teeth-like lobes are turned backwards towards the root from which they all directly spring—a habit which is not at all common to plants with indented leaves. If we look, with a glass to assist the eye, at a dandelion leaf against the light, we shall find something to please us, and something to admire in its venation, in the acute points of the serratures, and in its smooth glossiness. Features of interest to note, too, are its brittle, fleshy, tapering, milky root-stock and rootlets; its hollow, brittle, milky and radical flower-stem; and its buds, with the golden tips shining above the conspicuous involucre (a word derived from _involucrum_, a case, or wrapper), the involucre in the case of the dandelion consisting of two sets of green scales, the one set enclosing the yellow florets in the manner of a calyx; the other, and narrower set, consisting of a whorl of bracts, or leaf-like appendages, reflexed or bent down. When the blossom opens the upper bracts remain erect. And by-and-by the yellow florets disappear, and are succeeded, each, by a feathery pappus, connected by a slender stalk with a seed, and serving as a wing to bear the seed away when the ripening time arrives. The convex receptacle, in form so much like a pincushion, is, indeed, covered with seeds, whose feathery appendages are crowded into semi-globular form, ready, however, to take flight on the least breath of wind which may be strong enough to bear away to fresh fields and pastures new the tiny germs of the hardy life which lends the beauty of its presence to brighten forlorn waysides and neglected wastes. We must include the crocus (_Crocus vernus_) among the possible flowers of January, although the flowering calendar of the gardener will ordinarily be found to assign a later date for its period of blossoming.