^LU AND PURPLE 



for the fringed gentian is fickle in its habits, and the fact that we 

 have located it one season does not mean that we shall find it in 

 the same place the following year ; being an annual, with seeds 

 that are easily washed away, it is apt to change its haunts from 

 time to time. So our search for this plant is always attended 

 with the charm of uncertainty. Once having ferreted out its 

 new abiding-place, however, we can satiate ourselves with its 

 loveliness, which it usually lavishes unstintingly upon the moist 

 meadows which it has elected to honor. 



Thoreau describes its color as " such a dark blue ! surpassing 

 that of the male bluebird's back! " My experience has been 

 that the flowers which grow in the shade are of a clear pure 

 azure, " Heaven's own blue," as Bryant claims; while those 

 which are found in open, sunny meadows may be justly said to 

 vie with the back of the male bluebird. If the season has been a 

 mild one we shall perhaps find a few blossoms lingering into 

 November, but the plant is probably blighted by a severe frost, 

 although Miss Emily Dickinson's little poem voices another 

 opinion : 



" But just before the snows 



There came a purple creature 

 That ravished all the hill : 



And Summer hid her forehead, 



And mockery was still. 

 The frosts were her condition : 



The Tyrian would not come 

 Until the North evoked it, 



Creator! shall I bloom ! '" 



320 



