FLOWERS AND INSECTS 137 



couple of inches long. In the heart of this 

 rosette was a stemless flower-bud. 



Where do all these things come from 

 that pop out of the earth while your back 

 is turned, and that, too, after you have 

 browsed through the yard for weeks, pull- 

 ing up with trowel and fingers every sus- 

 picious thing? In one of the beds thus 

 attended I found a self-heal, or prunella; 

 and, being there, I let it flower, and eke 

 encouraged it. Though a country-loving 

 plant, it thrives in town on neglected streets 

 and among the cast-off bed-springs and 

 dry-goods of vacant lots. It is a frugal 

 flower, for it does not lavish its blossoms 

 in a day, but puts out alternate flowers 

 in alternate rows. The blooms are like 

 dragon-heads, but of a more intense purple 

 before opening than afterward. 



Dead leaves have many pranks. You 

 find them caught and impaled on trees 

 they never grew upon; and finding them 

 thus misplaced, and carelessly assuming 

 that they belong and were green there, you 

 make a note of the apple-tree with chestnut 

 leaves and the elm that grows like an oak. 



