OTHER WATER BORDERS 



bench or mesa the land falls away, often 

 by a fault, to the river hollows, and along 

 the drop one looks for springs or intermit- 

 tent swampy swales. Here the plant world 

 resembles a little the lake gardens, modified 

 by altitude and the use the town folk put 

 it to for pasture. Here are cress, blue 

 violets, potentilla, and, in the damp of the 

 willow fence-rows, white false asphodels. 

 I am sure we make too free use of this word 

 false in naming plants — false mallow, false 

 lupine, and the like. The asphodel is at 

 least no falsifier, but a true lily by all the 

 heaven-set marks, though small of flower 

 and run mostly to leaves, and should have 

 a name that gives it credit for growing up 

 in such celestial semblance. Native to the 

 mesa meadows is a pale iris, gardens of it 

 acres wide, that in the spring season of full 

 bloom make an airy fluttering as of azure 

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