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There is no floral spectacle in all the land so fine as this march of the composites over the Iowa prairies and fields in September. That is the judgment of those who have travelled and observed. In the swamps and along the ditches the blue lobelias flourish and the companies of blue gentians are bringing up the rear to end the floral review, begging the summer to wait until they pass by.
Nearly allied are quite a number of garden-plants with double flower-heads, among which are the double camomiles. My attention was first drawn to the structure of the heads and especially to the number of the ray-florets of the corn-marigold. The species appertains to that group of composites which have a head of small tubular florets surrounded by a broad border of rays.
In the grass where, after lying down for a moment, I had caught these lice were a few plants in blossom, of which the most abundant were three composites: Hedypnois polymorpha, Senecio gallicus and Anthemis arvensis.
Indeed, among the composites alone the thistle and dandelion tribe with downy fruits I can reckon up more than a hundred and fifty distinct variations of plan among the winged seeds known to me in various parts of Europe. But if I am strong, I am merciful: I will let the public off with a hundred and forty-eight of them.
In the family of the composites we find a group of genera with two forms of florets on each flower-head. The hermaphrodite ones are tubular with 5, or rarely 4, equal teeth, and occupy the center of the head. These are often called the flosculous florets or disk-florets. Those of the circumference are ligulate and ordinarily unisexual, without stamens.
Such heads are as completely double as are the brightest heads of the most beautiful double commercial varieties of composites. Real atavists or real reversionists were seen no more after the first purification of the race. I have continued my culture and secured last summer as many and as completely doubled heads as previously. The race has at once become permanent and constant.
Rays of the umbels of umbelliferous plants may grow together and become united in groups of two or more, and in the same way the fruits of the composites may be united into groups. Many other instances could easily be given. If we select some of these anomalies for breeding-experiments, our results will not agree throughout, but will tend to group themselves under two heads.
But the Pentateuch, or rather Hexateuch, the historical books in less degree, the writings even of some of the prophets, the codes which formulate the law and ritual, are composites which have been whole centuries in the making and remaking. There was no such thing as right of authorship in ancient Israel, little of it in the ancient world at all.
It shows the new attribute in its full development. It has flower-heads nearly as completely filled as the best double varieties of allied cultivated composites. In the second generation it reached heads with 200 rays each, and much larger numbers will seldom be seen in older species on heads of equal size.
Visions of natural scenery are most remote, strange, beautiful and delightful. They are doubtless composites of actual localities but in their construction and use fine powers of imagination are at work and real life seems left far behind.
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