208 PEPACTOX 



fields, and maybe upon the edge of the lawn, from 

 midsummer till frost comes. In winter its slender 

 stalk rises above the snow, bearing its round seed- 

 pods on its pin-like stems, and is pleasing even 

 then. Its flowers are yellow or white, large, wheel- 

 shaped, and are borne vertically with filaments loaded 

 with little tufts of violet wool. The plant has 

 none of the coarse, hairy character of the common 

 mullein. Our cone-flower, which one of our poets 

 has called the "brown-eyed daisy," has a pleasing 

 effect when in vast numbers they invade a meadow 

 (if it is not your meadow), their dark brown centres 

 or disks and their golden rays showing conspicu- 

 ously. 



Bidens, two-teeth, or "pitchforks," as the boys 

 call them, are welcomed by the eye when in late 

 summer they make the swamps and wet, waste 

 places yellow with their blossoms. 



Vervain is a beautiful weed, especially the blue 

 or purple variety. Its drooping knotted threads 

 also make a pretty etching upon the winter snow. 



Iron-weed, which looks like an overgrown aster, 

 has the same intense purple-blue color, and a royal 

 profusion of flowers. There are giants among the 

 weeds, as well as dwarfs and pigmies. One of the 

 giants is purple eupatorium, which sometimes car- 

 ries its corymbs of flesh-colored flowers ten and 

 twelve feet high. A pretty and curious little weed, 

 sometimes found growing in the edge of the garden, 

 is the clasping specularia, a relative of the harebell 

 and of the European Venus' s looking-glass. Its 



