WILD FLOWERS blue and purple 



They are set in a green cup. The long, narrow and 

 partly clasping leaf is hairy, and tapers toward the 

 point. The midrib is prominent, and shows a lighter 

 shade than the leaf. The margin is entire, and spar- 

 ingly notched. They are arranged alternately, and so 

 infrequent as to give the stem a generally naked appear- 

 ance. The basal leaves are tufted and narrow into 

 short, margined peticles or stems. Erigeron is Greek, 

 signifying old man in the spring, alluding to the 

 whitish hairs with which the plant is covered. 

 While the long stalk looks stiff and is erect, the 

 flowers have a certain refinedness that is becoming and 

 graceful. The species is found from Nova Scotia to On- 

 tario and Minnesota, south to Florida and Louisiana. 



THE THISTLES 



Many a happy-go-lucky barefoot lad has knit his 

 brows and bulged his cheek with his tongue, or whistled 

 while he danced on one foot and held the other, after 

 treading on a prickly tuft of Thistle leaves along the 

 way to or from his favourite swimming hole. That 

 is the way he learned to know the Thistle and to respect 

 it. Can this be the true story of how the Scotch learned 

 to dance the Highland fling ? One night, a long time 

 ago, a barefoot Dane experienced the same sensa- 

 tion and startled a Scotch sentinel, who saved his 

 sleeping comrades from annihilation. This incident 

 caused the patriotic Scots to adopt the Thistle as their 

 national emblem. In Scotland it is truly "a thing of 

 beauty and a joy forever," but the American farmer 



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