little swollen base of each ray, were shining threads tipped with buttons or pollen dust—-seed makers!
"Why," said a surprised little girl, "just this yellow ray and the things growing on it look like a whole flower!"
"It is. A dandelion head is a whole bouquet of flowers in a cup."
"It's something like a United States of flowers, isn't it?" asked a boy.
"That's it! A great scientist has said that the motto of the dandelion and its cousins seems to be 'United we stand'"
Really, the dandelion might be chosen for our national flower. It grows everywhere; it blooms from April until frost, and it is hard to conquer, once it gets a foothold. It's root goes deep and lives over winter. You may cut the plant off, burn the ground over, or plow it up, but the smallest root tip sends up a new plant. Every seed globe scatters it far. Count the seeds of the Blow Ball. Sturdy, determined little Lion Tooth, it hangs onto every one of its thousand chances of life.
There is another reason why it might be a good national flower. Its ray flowers, its toothed leaves, its long, swaying stems and gauzy seed globes could be used in many beautiful forms of art. They could be used as rosettes and borders, and the bases and capitals of stone pillars. See what pretty designs in charcoal, crayon and water-color you can make from studies of the dandelion.
These many-in-one flowers are called composites. All the ray flowers belong to this family—the daisy, the sun-flower, the asters, the chrysanthemums, dog-fennel, rosin-weed, thistles, the—guess! But you never will—the golden-rod!
That tall, rough, weedy stalk, with hairy leaves and long, drooping plume of flowers doesn't look at all like the ray flowers. The separate flowers are more like fairy lily bells. But a number of them are crowded into one head, and the seed are ray-feathered for flight. Like the dandelion, the golden-rod grows everywhere on good or poor soil. It sends down a stout root that fights for its life, and it makes countless seeds.
The composite flowers are the highest in the plant world because they can live and grow, and make and scatter the most seed under the hardest conditions. They are not at all concerned about being useful to men. Nearly one-eighth of all the plants on the globe are composites, but many of them are troublesome weeds. The daisy,
