STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 



hail. Thus does Creative Love shield and clothe the flowers 

 of the field ; His tender care is over all His works. 



Scarcely has our little Everlasting raised its soft cottony 

 head above the short turf when another species appears, as 

 if to rival its tiny brother, and known as the 



PLANTAIN-LEAVED EVERLASTING Antennaria plantaginifolia 



(Hook.). 



This plant varies in height from six inches to eight or 

 nine. The woolly stem is clothed with narrow leafy bracts; 

 the root-leaves are large and broadly ovate, several-nerved, 

 very white underneath, and less downy on the outer surface; 

 the corymbed head of flowers shines with bright scales and 

 silky pappus the scales are not pure white, but with a 

 slight tinge of brown. Later on in the month of July a 

 tall slender form of this Everlasting may be seen, with 

 larger root-leaves and loose heads of flowers on long foot- 

 stalks; the flowers are slightly tinged with reddish-purple 

 and silvery-gray, which gives a pearly or prismatic effect as 

 the eye glances over a number of the plants moved by the 

 summer wind. The flowery heads are conical, the unopened 

 blossoms sharply pointed the whole plant tall, slender and 

 simple, and very downy.* 



The later plants of the Everlasting family differ from the 

 above species. One commonly called 



NEGLECTED EVERLASTING Gnaphalium polycephalum (Mx.), 



deserves our especial notice on account of the pleasant 

 fragrance which pervades the gummy leaves as well as the 

 shining straw-colored flowers; the scent is aromatic and 

 slightly resinous. This plant is found in old pastures and 



* Antennaria neodioica, Greene. 



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