Page:Wayside and Woodland Blossoms.djvu/136

63 as may appear at first sight, but alternate; and there is the very peculiar arrangement of two minute leaflets being placed between each two large ones. The flowers are large in proportion to the plant, of one uniform yellow, and borne singly on a long stalk. The calyx is cleft into ten lobes, the petals are five, stamens and carpels many. Although it is a common roadside weed, it may also be met growing abundantly and much more luxuriantly in wet pastures. It flowers chiefly from June to August, and sparingly much later in the year.

Among its more immediate congeners may be noted:—

With the appearance of the delicately fragrant Bindweed in our fields the season for summer flowers may be said to have fairly set in. Its grace of form and colour makes it a general favourite, but it resents being plucked, and closes its pink cups almost immediately. It has a perennial rootstock, which creeps and branches underground, taking possession of much soil, and sending up many slender twining stems clothed with spear-shaped leaves. The sepals are five in number, but the petals are entirely united to form a funnel-shaped corolla; though the five folds and lobes indicate the origin of the funnel. The flowers