OF WILD FLOWERS 



month is so sweet with the masses of wild roses, great sheets of 

 fragrance and bloom, that the woodsy flowers pale by contrast. 

 By the twentieth, however, the shin-leaf is raising its delicate spikes 

 of pinkish perfumed blossoms all about the forest, and the tall 

 milkweed lifts its pink and white hoods to our delighted eyes. 



Early in July, the pure white Indian pipe gleams through the 

 woods, greeting its fragrant cousin the false beach drops; and that 

 curious little orchid, the small-flowered coral-root, appears with its 

 . tiny dull purple-brown flowers, followed by the beautiful clusters 

 of elder-berry, and on the island the blue lobelia. The white 

 sprays of the flowering spurge dance in the long grasses. What 

 a time we had finding its name! I was sure it must be a milkweed 

 from its sticky juice. Curiously enough it was not in my constant 

 companion, Schuyler Mathew's " Field Book on American Wild 

 Flowers." If the ends of the stalks are seared with a candle as 

 soon as picked, it lasts for days; and it combines well with the 

 cardinal-flower for the dining-room table. 



Later in July great masses of spiked loosestrife wave their pink 

 and purple stalks in the summer breezes, and the water beneath 

 them blushes into loveliness, and the sky above appears a deeper 

 azure. The rose-mallows on the other side of the willows blossom 

 in eager rivalry, and the woods are blue with the tall bellflower. 



In August the golden-rod arrives < and great fields of sunflowers 

 and black-eyed Susans contrast with the Joe Pye weed and the 



asters. What a beautiful family the asters are. from the sky- 



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