him i IAM/.1SC IX FALL A. WD WIN'l 17 



flowers are still in bloom — late fellows, that seem to take pride in 

 exfail >iting t hflir staying powers. Next Wednesday, only three days 

 oft", it will be, as I say, the first of November; and yet one would 

 be astonished to see what a bouquet of wild flowers one could 

 gather within the radius of a mile or more from where I am sitting. 

 Such a bunch would contain black-eyed Susans, summer daisies, 

 joint weed, self-heal, lobelia, purple asters, golden-rod and not a 

 few others. In some localities a poke-berry bush, five feet or more 

 in height, may appear almost as fine as the one I here show in 

 Figure 2, barring the loss of nearly all of its leaves. 



It is delightful to live in a region where one can go into the fields 

 during the early part of November and find blue boneset (Eupa- 

 torium ccelestinum) in bloom in some protected corner of an old, 

 overgrown pasture, where the eye may catch the gay lilac color 

 of its dense corymb of flowers, as it peeps over the bunch of dry 

 grasses which nearly hides its withering foliage below. Perhaps 

 even at this season there may be a belated Monarch butterfly 

 resting upon the flower ; if so, my Figure 3 will give a fair idea of the 

 combination, after the surrounding growth of autumn plants and 

 grasses have been removed. 



As we ramble through the woods; as we pass through the 

 meadows and brakes, or tramp into the marshes and wet places 

 during these fall days, we will soon appreciate the fact that one of 

 the most fascinating, perhaps one of the most profitable things to 

 study, are the various ways in which various plants go to seed. 

 Such studies are not only of value to the nature student, but they 

 are very materially so to the practical botanist, to the wild flower 

 ■culturist, and to the testers of seeds, who work with the economic 

 researcher in that line of general agriculture. 



Recently I have made many fine negatives of wild flowers as they 

 go to seed, and I intend to publish these in various avenues from 

 time to time. The present article can touch but lightly upon this 

 question owing to space limitations; but my aim will be largely 

 met through the presentation of one good example chosen to demon- 

 strate what I have in view. I have selected a beautiful example of 

 the common Velvet Leaf, also called " Indian Mallow" and "Ameri- 

 can Jute," a plant that has escaped from cultivation and now 

 grows wild. It is the Abutilon avicennce of Gray, and I present 

 here in Figure 4 a lovely picture of its seed pods, which, as any one 

 will admit, are truly artistic-looking little structures. My nega- 



