26 IN THE FLAT-WOODS. 
a tall pine, — the tallest in the wood, — where 
he pranced about fora while, striking sundry 
picturesque but seemingly aimless attitudes, 
and then made off for good. All in all, he 
was a wild-looking bird, if ever I saw one. 
I was no sooner in St. Augustine, of course, 
than my eyes were open for wild flowers. 
Perhaps I felt a little disappointed. Cer- 
tainly the land was not ablaze with color. 
In the grass about the old fort there was 
plenty of the yellow oxalis and the creeping 
white houstonia; and from a crevice in the 
wall, out of reach, leaned a stalk of golden- 
rod in full bloom. The reader may smile, 
if he will, but this last flower was a surprise 
and a stumbling-block. A vernal goldenrod ! 
Dr. Chapman’s Flora made no mention of 
such an anomaly. Sow thistles, too, looked 
strangely anachronistic. I had never thought 
of them as harbingers of springtime. The 
truth did not break upon me till a week 
or so afterward. Then, on the way to the 
beach at Daytona, where the pleasant penin- 
sula road traverses a thick forest of short- 
leaved pines, every tree of which leans heay- 
ily inland at the same angle (“the leaning 
pines of Daytona,” I always said to myself, 
