JUNE, JULY, AND AUGUST. 121 



Amarantus '^^^^ amaranth, or amarantiis, is really 



A. caudatm, and a Cultivated weed — a weed with a 

 meiancholicus. ^^^XegQ education, as some one has 

 said of the cauliflower as distinguished from common 

 cabbage. The two varieties, A. caudatus (Prince's 

 Feather), erect flowering, and A. melancholicus (Love- 

 lies-bleeding), with pendulous flower stems, are most 

 common. The flowers in both varieties are generally 

 crimson ; both come fi-om ludia. Another variety, 

 with flowers in an erect blunt spike {A. hypochou- 

 driacus), is cultivated from Mexico. There is a 

 wretched garden weed of exactly the same figure as 

 the cultivated amarantus, named A. retrofiexus^ com- 

 monly called pigweed. Its flowers are green. Celo- 

 sia, the garden cockscomb, is another near relative of 

 the amarantus; it also comes 'from India. Its flower 

 crest is generally fan-shaped. These flowers all bloom 

 throughout the summer. 



St. John's-wort is very common in 

 Shrubby 

 St. Jolin's-wort. New Jersey, and it may also be found 



Hypericum in morc or less plenty north and 



densifiorum. i c i o x n 



south 01 that fetate. its flowers are 



small and golden-yellow, and grow in dense clusters, 



from which fact it received its botanical name. My 



drawing is taken from a specimen which grew in the 



" Pines " of New Jersey. This variety of the flower 



is a distinctively American one, as H. perforatum, 

 9 



