134 



Prairie-Flowers. 



In the dry copses, and out among the hazel-patches, the Lespidezas are 

 now hiflorescent, and handsome both in leaf and blossom ; the Gauras 

 spcJ '. their slender panicles and wand-like racemes of white and rosy bloom ; 

 liie hawkweeds {Hieraceum) claim a passing notice ; Gera?'dias, both yellow 

 and rose-purple, are pleasingly attractive ; while, in the bottom-lands, large 

 masses of white and purple Eupatoriums are exceeding showy in the distance. 



It were a hopeless task to speak of the Rudbjckias, the great family of 

 Helianthus, and the various yellow kindred tribes. 



Exceptional to this herbaceous uniformity is the numerous family of 

 trefoils {Desmodium), well represented here, — their dull silvery aspect is noi 

 unpleasing, graced with smooth or downy pinnated foliage and purple- 

 peduncled blossoms ; also tangled masses of convolvulus, rather obtrusively 

 rampant and ostentatious ; the parasitic dodder {Cuscu/a) ; and the climb- 

 ino- o-round-nut {Apios tuberosa), having dense clusters of fragrant brown- 

 purple flowers on knotty peduncles. 



We are now in the early autumn, with the sun-flowers and other linger- 

 ing bloom yet thick around us. But another scene opens with rivalry of 

 array and color, — stout growths and gigantic altitudes culminated in the 

 sun-flowers. Lower and more diversified herbage has succeeded. The 

 asters and the golden-rods {Solidagos) are now predominant. Star-flowers, 

 with disks yellow and purple, and raj-s white, purple, blue, varied into indefi- 

 nite shades, — species so numerous and varied, that we cannot stay to iden- 

 tify or even mention them, — in their gay grouping and diffusive bloom, give 

 cheerfulness to advancing autumn. And the golden-rods, — equally numer 

 ous, more uniform in color, but pleasingly diversified in form, and every 

 where diffused among the asters, — their rich golden hues add charmingly 

 to the picture-scenes of September and October. With these are the beau- 

 tiful gentians, all represented here, and .some of them lifting a cheerful look 

 amid the decay around them and the falling of the pictured leaves. Last 

 in the procession of the season's successive bloom is Gcnt'uma detonsa, lin- 

 p-erino- amid the frosts of November, bright with cerulean-blue, and sole sur- 

 \ivor of the perished flowers. As Hepatica came to us in the early spring 

 with a cheery good-morrow, it is fitting that the fringed-gentian should 

 whisper us, late in autumn, a serene good-by. Burgess Trimddl. 



Elgin, III. 



