THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 5 



vegetal forms to employ and delight the botanist. Pentste- 

 mon grandiUorus is a sort of hot-house flower, a pet of nature, 

 as it dwells in patches on the alluvial level near the water- 

 courses, sheltered by banks and copses. It is very beautiful 

 in foliage and flower, but I am rather more attracted by 

 another species. Pcntstemon acuminatus, I believe, which 

 braves the drouglit of the limestone hills and the sand-dunes. 

 and fears not the onslaught of the moistureless winds that are 

 sure to beset it in such exposed situations. Pcntstemon crista- 

 tus, too, dwells on the higher ground, but sticks to the elevated 

 flats rather than to the hillsides. Its flowers here are nearly 

 white, instead of red or purple as the text-books say they are. 

 Pentstetiton gracilis, a fragile-looking beauty, has chosen yet 

 another kind of haunt, as it finds the low depressions in the 

 prairies, where rain-water sometimes stands, to its liking. That 

 handsome herb, the bellflower, which is the same as the "blue- 

 bells of Scotland." abounds in similar swales amid the hills. 



Steironcuia cilafiiiu haunts the shaded dells ; surely it 

 must be favored of the wood-deities — of those gay and care- 

 less nymphs that sport with sunbeams, bees, and blossoms : for 

 so successfully does it shield itself from the inquiring gaze of 

 men that, common enough though it is throughout our country, 

 and more attracti\e in appearance than many flowers that are 

 known the wide world over, yet it has received no vernacular 

 name by whicli we may call it. He that knows the herb at all 

 alludes to it by its scientific appellation, or perhaps by that 

 bookish one of "fringed loosestrife." 



About the first of June spiderworts make their appearance ; 

 they flourish not only in wet meadows where we would think 

 of looking first for them, but to a considerable height upon the 

 hills also. About this time red false-mallow {Malvastnun 

 cocineuni) has become plentiful along all roadsides and trails. 

 It is one of those herbs that are utilized by the Sioux medicine- 

 man in his practice. Indeed, the mucilage that the plant con- 

 tains is said to be an efficacious hemostatic remedv. The root. 



