igoij GuiLLET — Flowering of Wild Plants. 123 



ON THE AUTUMN-FLOWERING OF VARIOUS WILD 



PLANTS IN 1900. 



By Cephas Guillet, Ph. D. 



On account ot the remarkably mild autumn of last year, one 

 mi^ht have g-athered nosegays of wild flowers about Ottawa, 

 not only throughout Octob.^r, but during the first half of Novem- 

 ber. We had our first real snowstorm and sleighing the 13th 

 November, but even for some time after that wild flowers were to 

 be found in odd nooks and corners. Berries also were to be seen 

 unusually late. Dr. James Fletcher tells me, he gathered as many 

 ripe red raspberries as he cared to eat, at Kirk's Ferry, on the 27th 

 September, and they were of excellent flavor. I picked a few near 

 Rockliffe Park as late as the 15th October, which were, however, 

 ot better color than taste. 



It is well known that diff'erent plants bloom at diff"erent 

 times ; that there is, so to speak, a procession of the flowers. 

 Just when or for how long we may expect this or that plant to 

 bloom is not so well known. I am not aware that the order in 

 which the 1,200 odd species of flowering plants, of the Ottawa 

 district, put forth their blossoms has ever been determined. Here 

 is a pleasant and useful task for the students of nature in every 

 locality of our country. As a slight contribution to this end, I 

 submit the following late autumn observations made in the vicinity 

 of Ottawa, together with observations made in other parts of the 

 country by several readers of this "The Ottawa Naturalist," 

 who have been so good as to communicate them to me. 



Viper's bugloss or the " blue thistle" [Echium vulgare) — said 

 by Prof. Harrison in his "Weeds of Ontario," to be imported from 

 Europe — was quite abundant on October 26th, on a limestone 

 ridsre three miles out the Montreal Road. Three other " weeds " 

 (as the farmer justly calls them) I found on November 6th, namely, 

 May-weed [Maruta cotula) and ox-eye daisy [Leucanthemum vulgare) 

 on the roadside, and treacle mustard {^Erysimum cheiranthoides) 

 in a garden, in Ottawa East. I saw a patch of white clover in 

 Mr. Odell's brickyard on November 6th, and some red clover near 

 the same place on the same day, and again near Hemlock Lake on 

 November 8th and 12th. North of Peterboro' at Stony Lake, I 



