AUTUMN 



This is the blazing star, one of the latest blooming Blading 

 and most beautiful of the composites. 



Just back of the beach the gray sand-hills are 

 warm with the slender branches and little rose- 

 colored flowers of the sand knotweed, a patch of Sand-bills 

 which reminded Thoreau of " a peach-orchard in 

 bloom." The bright-hued, leafless stems of the 

 glasswort define the borders of the road. Only 

 a close examination convinces us of the existence 

 of the minute flowers of this odd-looking plant, for 

 they are so sunken in its thickened upper joints 

 as to be almost invisible. 



Now and then we come across an evening prim- 

 rose with blossoms so wide open, delicate, and fra- 

 grant, and with leaf and stem so lacking their 

 usual rankness, that we can hardly connect it with 

 the great, coarse plants whose brown, flowerless 

 spikes are crowding the edge of the highway. In Sea-side 

 this neighborhood the brilliant flowers and fleshy Z olden - fod 

 leaves of the sea-side golden-rod are everywhere 

 conspicuous, while farther inland the so-called 

 blue-stemmed species, bearing its clustered heads 

 in the leaf-angles along the stem, begins to predom- 

 inate. On the mountains and in the dry thickets 

 of the lowlands we encounter occasionally one of 

 the most attractive of the tribe — the sweet golden- Sweet 

 rod, with shining, dotted, narrow leaves, which g0 

 yield, when crushed, a refreshing, anise-like odor. 



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