Pe eS eee EMS eee ce Soper ae ee ee 
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OUR WILD FLOWERS. 809 
also true Water-Cress, escaped from cultivation. False Dragon- 
head (Physostegia Virginiana) bends its wand-like stems and bright 
pink flowers where in the springtime the water overflowed. Here, 
’ too, are yellow Chrysanthum-like flowers of larger Bur-Marigold, 
é (Bidens Chrysanthemoides). Carpet-Weed (Mollugo verticillata) 
= forms round mats upon the sand, and Water Hemp (Acnidatuber- 
fs culata) straggles over the gravel. The lake shore banks are at some 
: points golden with Partridge Pea(Cassia chamaccrista)whose bright 
flowers have six purple and four yellow anthers. The leaves are 
. sensitive. Toward the last of the month the throng of compositae 
‘ rapidly increases. There are various species of Thistle, Blazing 
. Star, Rosin- Weed, Rattlesnake-Root, Hawkweed, with Lettuce, Thor- 
oughwort, Ironweed, Snakeweed, Boltomia, etc. 
In September days there are Asters in all shades of lavender, pink, 
purple, crimson and white, and Goldenrods of many species, blos- 
soming in royal profusion everywhere. The Fringed Gentian 
withers in the meadows where the leaves and ferns are all golden 
brown with autumn coloring, but we find the blue, closed Gentian, 
that flower which always seems in bud. The yellow Wood Sorrel, 
which began to blossom weeks before,is still clothed with its bright 
flowers. We detect a faint odor of Violets, like a memory of spring, 
and discover that it comes from the chocolate-brown clusters of 
Ground Nut,a late blossoming vine. Two other vines which blos- 
som until late September and add to the tangle by the streams are 
one-seeded Bur-Cucumber and wild Balsam Apple. In the woods 
Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis Margaritaceae) still keeps its fresh 
look among the great mass of plants gone to seed. 
When October air lays chill over the autumn-tinted landscape, ~ 
making the stretch of trees look shadowy in the distance, the whole 
3 country is gold and scarlet-russet and brown with the changing 
leaves. On bluffsides are a few later Asters and one last species of 
Goldenrod (Solidago latifolia.) The light blue five-flowered Gentian 
blossoms among the dark rocks, while in open woods the latest of 
our wild flowers, the Gentian (Gentiana proberula),which has petals 
so deeply blue, looks out from the frost-reddened leaves. In our 
late summer and autumn walks, instead of the bright blossoms 
which used to greet us, we find an interesting and bewildering array 
of ripened fruits and seeds and form an intimate acquaintance with 
burs of various kinds. We notice the bursting pods of the Milk- 
weeds as the brown seeds with their tufts of silky hairs float away 
on the breeze like a colony of fairy balloons, or the Tumbleweed as 
it bounds over the prairie before the winds, knowing that these are 
a few of the many and wonderful ways provided for the dissemina- 
; tion of seeds. 
e In the white days of winter,we find the overarching branches bare 
R or with the withered leaves of last year still clinging tothem. It 
is then we learn to understand shrubs and trees better than when 
robed with leaves. We see the sturdiness and strength of the 
: widely spreading Bur Oaks, the graceful outline of the Elms and 
: how readily they bend to the blast, the ashy gray of the Poplars 
4 against the mottled hillside and the white gleam of the Birches. 
