, 32 THE FALL OF THE YEAR 



never seen anything at all that is worth seeing. The 

 witch-hazel bush, all yellow with its strange blossoms 

 in November, is worth seeing, worth taking a great 

 deal of trouble to see. . 



There is a little flower in southern New Jersey 

 /called pyxie, or flowering moss, a very rare and hid- 

 _ den little thing ; and I know an old botanist who 

 traveled five hundred miles just to have the joy of 

 J| seeing that little flower J 



growing in the sandy 

 swamp along Silver Run. 



If you have never seen the 



^- witch-hazel in bloom, it 

 will pay you to travel five 

 hundred and five miles to see it. But you won't need 

 \ to go so far, unless you live beyond the prai- 

 | ries, for the witch-hazel grows from Nova Scotia 



to Florida and west to Minnesota and Alabama. 

 SQJf There is one flower that, according to Mr. John 

 Muir (and he surely knows ! ), it will pay one to 

 I travel away up into tile highest Sierra to see. It is 

 Hhe fragrant Washington lily, "the finest of all the 

 > Sierra lilies," he says. " Its bulbs are buried in 

 ( ' I shaggy chaparral tangles, I suppose for safety from 

 pawing bears ; and its magnificent panicles sway and 

 rock over the top of the rough snow-pressed bushes, 

 , while big, bold, blunt-nosed bees drone and mumble 

 in its polleny bells. A lovely flower worth going 

 ) hungry and footsore endless miles to see. The whole 



