112 BOULDER REVERIES. 



not one head in ten of these tall thistles has 

 blossomed. 



That plants as well as animals occasionally 

 appear as "sports," is shown by the fact that all 

 the disk flowers of the head of one clump of 

 ironweeds are snow-white instead of purple in 

 color. The pappus is also a very light brown, 

 much lighter than that of the common purple 

 flowered form. 



On the dry wooded slopes the lopseed, the In- 

 dian tobacco and the horse-nettle yet blossom, 

 while the brunella along the margins of the 

 streamlet's shaded banks still yields its nectar 

 to the ever busy bumblebee. 



Absolutely bare places are very rare on the 

 face of mother earth. If the surface contains 

 nutriment enough for a weed or grass, or herb 

 of any kind, there soon an herb will appear; 

 there grow and perhaps reproduce its kind. 

 There, too, it will, in time, decay, thus return- 

 ing to the organic matter of the soil that which 

 it has taken from it, and more. It thus gradu- 

 ally fits that soil for future generations of plants 

 and animals and eventually for the use of man. 



