92 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



Slime Moulds". This volume, which is the only one on the 

 subject, has long been out of print, but it has now been re- 

 issued in a new and enlarged form containing 300 pages of 

 text and twenty-three full page plates in which the species are 

 illustrated. A number of new species have been included. In 

 the slime moulds the student is not perplexed by the necessity 

 of a choice between different works on the subject. It is for- 

 tunate, therefore, that the only volume is accurate, author- 

 itative and the matter attractively presented. An examination 

 of the book is enough to make the lover of outdoors want to 

 take up the study. 



The lupine is now in its glory. It is the most important 

 because it occurs in such extensive patches, even an acre or 

 more together, and of such a pleasing variety of colors, purple, 

 pink, lilac and white, especially with the sun on it when the 

 transparency of the flower makes its color changeable. It 

 paints a whole hillside with its blue, making such a field (if 

 not meadow) as Proserpine might have wandered in. Its 

 leaf was made to be covered with dewdrops. I am quite 

 excited by the prospect of this blue flower in clumps, with nar- 

 row intervals. Such a profusion of the heavenly, the Elysian 

 color, as if these were the Elysian Fields. That is the value 

 of the lupine. The earth is blued with it, yet a third of a 

 mile distant I do not detect this color on the hillside. Per- 

 chance because it is the color of the air. It is not distant 

 enough. You may have passed along here a fortnight ago and 

 the hillside was compartively barren but now you come and 

 these glorious redeemers appear to have flocked out all at 

 once. Who plants the seed of lupines in the barren soil? 

 Who watereth the lupines in the field? — Henry D. ThorEau. 



