180 GLEANINGS FEOM NATURE. 



seemed trying to excel the hue of the sky above 

 them. 



Just over the boundary fence, however, beyond the 

 jurisdiction of the devastating wayside mower, grew 

 in many places wild asters in profusion. Our native 

 asters are distinctively flowers of autumn. They do 

 not begin blooming until mid-September, and, as late 

 as December 1st, can often be found in some protected 

 nook, the last wild flowers of the dying year. The 

 wild asters vary in color from a pure white to a deep 

 blue. One or two possess a pinkish tinge but none 

 are red or yellow. Our sunflowers and golden-rods 

 furnish sufficient of the latter color; while the scarlet 

 leaves of the maple, black-gum and dogwood, together 

 with many of our wild fruits,, paint amply red the 

 autumn landscape. 



The asters, sunflowers and golden-rods comprise 

 nearly one-half of the Indiana members of the great 

 Composite family in number of species the giant 

 family of the flowering plants. In the arts the use of 

 these plants is unknown. But the lover of nature, 

 whose eye is ever on the search for the pleasing and 

 the beautiful, blesses their existence; for, their hues 

 absent, our autumn scenery would lose much of the 

 charm due to its variety of color. 



Beyond the prairie came the uplands of Parke and 

 Montgomery counties where the Kentucky blue-grass 

 and the sugar-maple, two of the most attractive and 

 valuable wild plants known to man, reach the acme 

 of their perfection. The limestone soil of this "blue- 

 grass region of Indiana" furnishes exactly the food 

 needed to make the sugar-maple, Acer saccharum 



