PINK 



plant is related to the turtle-head, but the square stem and four- 

 lobed ovary soon persuade us of its kinship with the members of 

 the Mint Family. 



SAND KNOTWEED. 



Polygonella articulata. (Formerly Polygonum articulatum.) Buckwheat 



Family. 



Erect; branching; four to twelve inches high. Leaves. — Linear; incon- 

 spicuous. Flotuers. — Rose-color; nodding; in very slender racemes. 

 Calyx. — Five-parted. Corolla. — None. Sta?nens. — Eight. Pistil. — One, 

 with three styles. 



Under date of September 26th, Thoreau writes: ''The 

 Polygonum articulatu7?i, giving a rosy tinge to Jenny's desert, is 

 very interesting now, with its slender dense racemes of rose- 

 tinted flowers, apparently without leaves, rising cleanly out of 

 the sand. It looks warm and brave, a foot or more high, and 

 mingled with deciduous blue curls. It is much divided, with 

 many spreading, slender-racemed branches, with inconspicuous 

 linear leaves, reminding me, both by its form and its colors, of a 

 peach-orchard in blossom, especially when the sunlight falls on 

 it ; minute rose-tinted flowers that brave the frosts, and advance 

 the summer into fall, warming with their color sandy hill-sides 

 and deserts, like the glow of evening reflected on the sand, ap- 

 parently all flower and no leaf. Rising apparently with clean 

 bare stems from the sand, it spreads out into this graceful head 

 of slender, rosy racemes, wisp-like. This little desert of less 

 than an acre blushes with it. 



>" JOE-PYE-WEED. TRUMPET-WEED. 



[PI. CXVI 

 Eupatorium purpiireum. Composite Family. 



Stem. — Stout and tall ; two to twelve feet high ; often dotted. Leaves. 

 — In whorls of three to six ; oblong or oval ; pointed ; rough ; veiny ; 

 toothed. Flower-heads. — Purplish-pink ; small ; composed entirely of tubu- 

 lar blossoms, with long protruding styles ; growing in large clusters at or 

 near the summit of the stem. 



The summer is nearly over when the tall, conspicuous Joe- 

 Pye-weeds begin to tinge with '' crushed raspberry " the low- 



252 



