FAR AND NEAR 



style about this plant, either singly or in masses. Its 

 suggestion is as distinctly feminine as that of the 

 trumpet-weed is masculine. 



When the poet personifies August, let him fill her 

 arms with some of these flowers, or place upon her 

 brows a spray of wild clematis, which during this 

 month throws its bridal wreaths so freely over our 

 bushy, unkempt waysides and fence corners. After 

 you have crowned and adored your personified 

 August in this way, then give the finishing touch 

 with the scarlet raceme of the cardinal flower, 

 flaming from the sheaf of ranker growths in her 

 arms. How this brilliant bit of color, glassing 

 itself in a dark, still pool, lights up and affects the 

 vague, shadowy background upon which it is pro- 

 jected ! 



In August the "waters blossom." This is the 

 term the country people in my section apply to a 

 phenomenon which appears in the more sluggish 

 streams and ponds during this month. When ex- 

 amined closely, the water appears to be filled with 

 particles of very fine meal. I suspect, though I do 

 not know, that these floating particles are the spores 

 of some species of fresh-water alga; or they may 

 be what are called zoospores. The algse are at their 

 rankest during August. Great masses of some 

 species commonly called " frogs' spawn " rise to the 

 surface of the Hudson and float up and down with 

 the tide, — green unclean-looking masses, many 



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