62 DECEMBER OUT-OF-DOORS. 



pearance in Lowell, and probably in other 

 places. It is a coarse -looking little plant, 

 delighting to grow in pure gravel; but its 

 blossoms are pretty, and now, with not 

 another flower of any sort near it, it looked, 

 as the homely phrase is, "as handsome as 

 a picture." Its more generally distributed 

 congener, Senecio vulgaris, also a for- 

 eigner is, next to the common chickweed, 

 I should say, our very hardiest bloomer. 

 At the beginning of the month it was in 

 flower in an old garden in Melrose ; and at 

 Marblehead Neck a considerable patch of it 

 was fairly yellow with blossoms all through 

 December and January, and I know not 

 how much longer. I saw no shepherd's 

 purse after December 27th, but knawel was 

 in flower as late as January 18th. The 

 golden-rods, it will be observed, are absent 

 altogether from my list ; and the same would 

 have been true of the asters, but for a single 

 plant. This, curiously enough, still bore 

 five heads of tolerably fresh blossoms, after 

 all its numberless companions, growing upon 

 the same hillside, had succumbed to the 

 frost. 



Of my sixteen plants, exactly one half are 



