DISCS OF BLOSSOM 



WILD flowers towards midsummer become not only more 

 numerous but more massive ; and although only the bosom 

 of the waters sustains in our climate so large a single bloom 

 as the water-lily, flowering bushes and tall quick-springing 

 herbage foster heavy clusters of pale blossom that shine in 

 the midsummer evenings. The abundant discs of elder 

 blossom catch every eye as the June days lengthen, but 

 elders are only the most conspicuous and one of the 

 commonest of the plants with this distinctive habit of 

 flower. A little earlier the hedges were dappled with the 

 smaller circles of the water-guelder and wayfaring tree, while 

 the foaming masses of hawthorn blossom are an aggregate 

 of many similar clusters. Whitebeam and mountain-ash 

 drooped larger clusters than those of the two guelder-roses. 

 After the elder has faded the dogwood dots the dusty road- 

 side with a smaller generation of clusters, in keeping with 

 the ebb of summer's life. But in the deepening dusks 

 the succession of disclike flowers is still luminous. The 

 hemlocks and fennels are more enduring than the blossoming 

 shrubs, and produce flower-heads in which the disclike 

 formation is most precise. 



These compound discs of blossom are an illustration of 



