ACCORDING TO SEASON 



The different asters are affording the loveliest 



Showy shades of blue, purple, and lavender. Pre-eminent 

 for richness of color and beauty of detail are the 

 large, violet-hued, daisy-like heads of the showy 

 aster, a species which is found growing in sandy 

 soil along the coast. In the woods, nodding from 

 tall stems, we notice the graceful, bell-like flower- 

 heads of the rattlesnake-root. 



A friend writes me that in parts of Connecticut 



Great blue the swamps are still bright with the great blue lo- 

 belia, and that the yellow flowers of the bur-mari- 

 gold are abundant in the road-side ditches. This 

 last-named plant holds its own through the first 

 frosts till well on in November. Its dull-looking 

 sister, the common stick-tight, whose ugly, brown- 

 ish flower-heads are frequent in moist, waste 

 places, is equally tenacious of life — and of our 

 clothes, to which its barbed seed-vessels cling so 



stick- tight persistently that every walk across country means 

 that we have innocently extended its unwelcome 

 sway. 



Indeed, we can hardly spend a morning out of 

 doors at this season without having our attention 



Seeddis- drawn constantly to the many ingenious devices 

 adopted by the different plants for the distribu- 

 tion of their seed. On ourselves and on our dogs 

 we find not only the troublesome barbs of the 

 stick- tight, but also the flat, hooked pods* of the 



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