NOVEMBER'S WILD FLOWER 227 



March has its own chosen prophet in the hooded her- 

 mit of the bog the skunk-cabbage flower. What is 

 the one floral emblem of November New England 

 November, at least ? Before what flower may we now 

 pause in the woods, with this greeting from the poet : 



" Thou waitest late and com'st alone, 

 When woods are bare and birds are flown, 

 And frosts and shortening days portend 

 The aged year is at an end." 



Thus sang Bryant to his " fringed gentian " long ago ; 

 but I will venture the assertion that the next time he 

 went into the bare autumn woods he had to run the 

 gauntlet of the bombardment from the witch-hazel 

 guns, for it is to the witch-hazel blossom alone that 

 such sentiments could be addressed with any justice or 

 truth. 



"The fringed gentian belongs to September," says 

 Burroughs, commenting upon the above lapse of the 

 poet, " and when the severer frosts keep away it runs 

 over into October. But it does not come alone, and 

 the woods are not bare. The closed gentian comes at 

 the same time, and the blue and purple asters are in 

 all their glory. Golden -rod, turtle-head (chelone), and 

 other fall flowers also abound. When the woods are 

 bare, which does not occur in New England till in or 

 near November, the fringed gentian has long been 

 dead. It is, in fact, killed by the first considerable 

 frost. No ; if one were to go botanizing, and take Bry- 

 ant's poem as a guide, he would not bring home any 

 fringed gentians with him. The only flower he would 

 find would be the witch-hazel." Burroughs evidently 

 gave the cold shoulder to the remnant blooms already 



