FLOWERS OF THE SUN 



24! 



discoverable, merely the color ; but as we threaded 



our way in from the edge, the blue brightened and 



became Fringed Gentian, and the white, glistening 



like pearls, divided itself into countless 



spikes of the crystal Ladies' Tresses 



and the single, five-petaled blossoms 



of . the Grass of Parnassus, a heavily 



veined flower, held upon a long 



stem above the tufted, 



plantain -like leaves. 



The fringed petals of 

 the wide-open Gentian, 

 caught and twirled 

 by the wind that 

 blew through the gap, 

 drank in the full sun- 

 light and wore the azure, the hue 

 of heaven, with which Bryant 

 paints the flower that, unless seen blooming in the 

 open, belies its famed charm as well as color, for 

 the half -opened blossoms of the shade are purplish, 

 contracted, and more interesting botanically than 

 as flowers of the landscape. 



Flower Hat stood in silence, looking first at the 

 sky, across which thin, feathery clouds now sailed, 

 then at its reflection in the flowery maze before 



P 



