2 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST, 



air as with violets. In June the wild grape pours out its 

 ravishing fragrance, and in autumn offers its amethystine 

 beads. Here, too, the Clethra, one of the last shrubs to 

 flower in August, shows us its pretty white blossoms. 

 Indeed, a New England stone-wall is often a perfect flower 

 garden, where fern and blossom contend for mastery. 

 Bitter-sweet and Roxbury wax-work tangle about it ; 

 golden-rods and asters make it gay with bloom, and tall 

 Osmundas raise beside it their plumy fronds. 



It is always refreshing to leave the beaten track or 

 dust-lined highway for a grassy lane, overarched by trees 

 and w^all protected. These roads possess wonderful pos- 

 sibilities; they may lead any or no where. Their inten- 

 tions are usuall}^ good, but they may "end in a squirrel- 

 track and run up a tree," All the better; let us follow 

 and explore. 



"This solitude may shrine the haunted wood, 

 Storied so s^veetly in romance and rhyme. 

 Secure from human ill, and rarely peopled still, 

 By fawns and dryads of the olden time." 



We may meet some of these queer people and need no 

 introduction. 



Yes, our stone-walls are poems. We could no more 

 dispense with them than with the maple or pine. They 

 are outgrowths of the soil. They take the place of ruins 

 in our landscape ; they are the settlers' unconscious con- 

 tribution to the beauty of the scene. 

 Providence, R. I. 



THE YOUNG FRINGED GENTIAN. 



BY J. FORD SEMPERS. 



IN addition to what has appeared in The American 

 Botanist concerning the biennial habit of the fringed 

 gentian, a further description of some experiments with 

 the plant in its first year of life, and the results that fol- 

 lowed may also be of interest. Many thanks are first due 

 to Mr. Plitt who very kindly supplied the seed from his 

 station near Baltimore, Md., for making the tests. 



Our plants were all necessarily reared in a more or less 



