1856.] Flora of the Western States. 213 



And DOW hurrying past the purple Gerardias, the aromatic Monardas, 

 and Pjcnanthema, the anomalous button snake-root (Erjngium), staying 

 not even for the Trantvetteria, on whose broad, white corymb we fix out 

 gaze for a moment, we notice, at last, a huge weed, yonder, twelve feet 

 in hight, stout and branching like a tree, bearing thousands of minute, 

 unsightly flower-heads. In astonishment, we ask, what in Flora's name 

 can this be ? And our surprise is in no wise diminished, when at length 

 we recognize, in this giant weed, the humble Erigeron Canadenseror 

 fea-hane of the Xew England hills, there usually limited to the hight of 

 a few inches ! Such is the comparative strength of the virgin prairie soil. 

 Our sweet wild-wood flowers are worthy of a more extended notice than 

 we can now devote to them. The near approach of spring reminds us 

 first of the Erigenia, spring's eldest daughter. What botanist, or even 

 florist, does not welcome this little messenger, expanding its tiny blossoms 

 in the vicinity perhaps of some lingering snow-bank ? The bosom of the 

 forest, long so cold and desolate, will soon once more glow with beauty 

 as a garden, for the early native flowers generally survive the effects of 

 foraging, in consequence of ripening their seed before the domestic birds 

 commence their ravages. In this profusion of floral beauty, the Mecon- 

 opsis will flaunt its spotted sea-green leaves, and its golden yellow flowers, 

 in countless numbers. But the dainty Jeffersonia, retiring to some 

 choice corner, as if disdaining to associate with common plants, there 

 spreads its bifoliate leaves, its large white flowers, and elaborotes its 

 snuff-box seed-vessels alone. 



We scarcely need mention the hlood-root, the spring-beauty, the 

 sqmrreJ-corn, etc., since these are common throughout the country; but 

 the lodauthus. a beautiful crucifer, with violet-purple flowers, and the 

 Synandra, a curious labiate, with large white flowers, we may claim as 

 peculiarly Western. The latter was exceedingly common in this region 

 when Xuttall surveyed it, but is now fast disappearing from our wo'^Dds. 

 We yet occasionally see in the borders of our woods, Hcdyotis purpurea, 

 the very emblem of modest beauty, and worthy of the choicest place in 

 the flower garden. Along the banks of streams, and in meadows, are 

 found ihQ pride of Ohio, and the Miami mist, either of them seldom 

 growing beyond the limits of the great valley. The former, Collinsia 

 verna, is a tender, opposite-leaved Tierb. whose lip-shaped corollas, are 

 variegated with white and blue; the latter, Cosmanthus Purshii, yet 

 more delicate in structure, has regular, pale blue corollas, cleft all around 

 into a highly ornamental frin^^e. 



Deep in the solitude of the widest barrens of Indiana, the exploring 

 naturalist may again some day behold the tall and stately form of the 



