Flowers, Shown to the Children

by C. E. Smith

1. TRAVELLER'S JOY

You will have no difficulty in recognising this plant. It has masses of grey-green flowers, and big bunches of feathery tufts; and you will find it growing in summer right over the tops of the hedges.

There are some unusual things about this flower. It has really no petals. There are four pretty sepals of a grey-green colour, which are covered with soft white woolly down. These woolly sepals soon fall off, and within you find a big bunch of whitish green stamens. When the seeds which grow in the centre of the bunch of stamens begin to ripen, they each send out a long feathery tail. These tails wave in the air, and look like tufts of down clinging to the hedges.

The leaves are dark green above and paler green below. They grow opposite each other on the stem. Sometimes their edges are quite smooth, and sometimes they are cut like the teeth of a big saw.

The stem of the Traveller's Joy is very tough and woody. It is easily bent, and would not be able to rise from the ground were it not that there are little curly green threads called tendrils below the small leaves. These tendrils twist themselves round the stems of the hedges, and with this support the plant can climb as high as the top of the hedge.

2. WOOD ANEMONE

This is one of the daintiest of our wild plants. You find the woods carpeted with it in early spring.

The flower has six delicate white sepals. These are long and rather narrow, and on the outside they are often tinged with purple or pink. The buds are usually quite pink until they open. These pink sepals form the calyx. There are no petals.