out the grass on lawns, and in such places as Battersea Park and
Hyde Park in London? "Oh," you say, "that is not a flower at all--that
is just grass." Yes, it is grass, but the grass has a flower as well as
a rose bush or a violet-plant. It is only because the grass is kept cut
short that you do not see its flower on a lawn. If grass is not cut, or
eaten by animals, it grows tall in spring; then in May or June you would
see the flowers on tall straight stems which stand among the blades of
grass. Many of these grass flowers are very beautiful and we will look
presently at some of them in one of the farmer's fields.

Perhaps some of you have gardens or grass plots at your own homes. If
you see some dandelions in the lawn, or groundsel among the flowers or
vegetables in the garden beds, you say, "Those weeds must be pulled up."
You call the Dandelion and the Groundsel weeds, but they have flowers
all the same; the Dandelion is perhaps one of the most lovely yellow
flowers that we have.

They are weeds certainly in your lawn or garden beds, for they ought not
to be there. Weeds are plants in the wrong place. By and by, in the
farmer's fields, we shall see many pretty flowers which he calls weeds.
We speak of the Nettle as a weed, and do not usually admire it; yet the
Nettle has a flower, as we shall see.

Then what do you think of a tree having a flower? That is perhaps a new
idea to you. Yet if you look at a Horse-chestnut tree in June you will
see at once the large spikes of beautiful white flowers with which it is
covered. Apple trees have a beautiful pink, or pink and white flower,
and the Almond tree bears a lovely pink flower. All other trees have
flowers too, but they are often small. The flowers of the Oak and the
Beech are small, but, though you may not notice them, they are on the
tree each spring.

Almost all plants, including large trees, have flowers--they are
flowering plants. Just a few plants have no flower; ferns have none, nor
have the mosses and lichens which grow on walls and rocks and on the
stems of trees. Fungi, too, such as the mushroom, have no flowers.
Nearly all other plants have flowers. It is by the flower or blossom
that a plant is reproduced. After the flower has faded comes the fruit
and seed; the seed falls into the ground or is sown, and from it springs
another plant. Without the flower there would be no seed.

You see that there are rather more flowers than you had thought. Still,
w