10 RIVERBY 



here and there in the fields, and the farmers were 

 thoroughly alive to the danger, and were fighting 

 it like fire. Its seeds are winged like those of the 

 dandelion, and it sows itself far and near. It would 

 be a beautiful acquisition to our midsummer fields, 

 supplying a tint as brilliant as that given by the 

 scarlet poppies to English grain-fields. But it would 

 be an expensive one, as it usurps the land com- 

 pletely. 1 



Parts of New England have already a midsummer 

 flower nearly as brilliant, and probably far less ag- 

 gressive and noxious, in meadow-beauty, or rhexia, 

 the sole northern genus of a family of tropical 

 plants. I found it very abundant in August in the 

 country bordering on Buzzard's Bay. It was a new 

 flower to me, and I was puzzled to make it out. 

 It seemed like some sort of scarlet evening primrose. 

 The parts were in fours, the petals slightly heart- 

 shaped and convoluted in the bud, the leaves 

 bristly, the calyx-tube prolonged, etc. ; but the stem 

 was square, the leaves opposite, and the tube urn- 

 shaped. The flowers were an inch across, and 

 bright purple. It grew in large patches in dry, 

 sandy fields, making the desert gay with color; 

 and also on the edges of marshy places. It eclipses 

 any flower of the open fields known to me farther 

 inland. When we come to improve our wild 

 garden, as recommended by Mr. Robinson in his 



1 This observation was made ten years ago. I have since 

 learned that the plant is Hieracium aurantiacum from Europe, a 

 kind of hawkweed. It is fast becoming a common weed in New 

 York and New England. (1894.) 



