THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 5 



near the streams, and in the brush not far from dwellings, 

 Loniccra Japonica has estahlished itself. Only the climbing- 

 branches bloom. Those that clasp the earth are sterile. 



The scented purplish pink heads, of Schrankia angustata 

 smell somewhat like oil of wintergreen. It is a delicately pretty 

 plant spreading close to the ground. Tradescantia Virginica 

 often grows near it as does also that exquisite little amaryllid, 

 Cooperia pedunculata, but by far the favorite home of the latter 

 is the lawns made on the once rich prairies. After every rainy 

 spell from July to the last of September, our lawn will be 

 gleaming white with hundreds and hundreds of its stars whose 

 sweetness saturates the outside air and penetrates into the 

 house, both upstairs and down. The few leaves are unnoticed 

 in the grass and, unless one looks closely for the buds, they 

 too are never seen, and then comes the great surprise some 

 morning or evening. I do not remember them blooming more 

 than four times in a season but that was an unusually wet year. 

 A little girl whose vocabulary had not yet acquired the word 

 fragrance once observed to me with a half-regretful air, "I 

 pick them because they are so sweet, but after awhile I smell 

 all the taste out of them." But like the Nothoscordiunu, the 

 fragrance often returns if they are put in water. 



In some low grounds, Conoclinum codestinum may be 

 found blooming late in summer, but it is really only slightly 

 fragrant and perhaps I ought not to list it. Another Composite 

 not very strongly fragrant is Dracopsis ample •xkaulis, which 

 to my mind is the most beautiful of the cone-flowers. I know 

 a piece of ground that was without one plant six years ago. 

 The next year there were a few and each succeeding year they 

 have increased by thousands. Where they are crowded, there 

 is every graduation in size from six inches high with one tiny 

 flower to three feet high with many long stems bearing 

 columns an inch and a half high skirted with ray-flowers over 

 an inch long. 



