AUGUST DAYS 



loosestrife. Mass and intensity take the place of 

 delicacy and furtiveness. The spirit of Nature has 

 grown bold and aggressive; it is rank and coarse; 

 she flaunts her weeds in our faces. She wears a 

 thistle on her bosom. But I must not forget the deli- 

 cate rose gerardia, which she also wears upon her 

 bosom, and which suggests that, before the season 

 closes, Nature is getting her hand ready for her deli- 

 cate spring flora. With me this gerardia Hues open 

 paths over dry knolls in the woods, and its little 

 purple bells and smooth, slender leaves form one of 

 the most exquisite tangles of flowers and foliage of 

 the whole summer. It is August matching the color 

 and delicacy of form of the fringed polygala of May. 

 I know a half-wild field bordering a wood, which is 

 red with strawberries in June and pink with gerar- 

 dia in August. 



One may still gather the matchless white pond- 

 lily in this month, though this flower is in the height 

 of its glory earlier in the season, except in the north- 

 ern lakes. 



A very delicate and beautiful marsh flower that 

 may be found on the borders of lakes in northern 

 New York and New England is the horned bladder- 

 wort, — yellow, fragrant, and striking in form, like a 

 miniature old-fashioned bonnet, when bonnets cov- 

 ered the head and projected beyond the face, instead 

 of hovering doubtfully above the scalp. The horn 

 curves down and out Uke a long chin from a face hid- 



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