6o PICTURING MIRACLES 



The Sneeze Weed is just one of the 10,000 Com- 

 positae scattered all over the world. It has golden 

 yellow rays and a rich brown center. The tiny blos- 

 soms on the outer edge a ring of them opening 

 every night till they are all open. There are often, 

 as revealed by the lapse-time camera, tiny thrifts, 

 so small they would not be noticed by the casual 

 observer, but seemingly particularly fond of this 

 plant, hopping from one flower to another. The 

 flowers seem to like the waste places best and I have 

 seen them growing so thick they made a solid mass 

 of color. 



The Black Eyed Susan is like the Sneeze Weed, 

 except it grows taller with deep yellow rays and a 

 purplish brown conical center. All of these flowers 

 are very slow in opening; it averages ten days for 

 the rays to fully develop. 



The Cone Flower grows in meadows around 7,000 

 feet elevation; at Crane Flat and on the Pohono 

 trail in Yosemite are colonies of them blooming in 

 midsummer. Often the center cone bearing the 

 numerous flowers is an inch in diameter and as 

 long as your finger. When the middle flowers are 

 open, perhaps the bottom ones on the cone dying, 

 leaving a ring half way up, they are especially beau- 

 tiful. The plant is often four or five feet tall with 

 large leaves sometimes a foot long and five inches 



