STUDIES OP PLANT LIFE 



white daisy-like flowers which appear all through the 

 summer; but when seen in dirty streets we overlook its 

 merits and turn from it with distaste. This feeling is not 

 very amiable, but it is natural to dislike whatever is vulgar, 

 low and intrusive. 



WILD SUNFLOWER Helianthus strigosus (L.). 



" As the sunflower turns to her god as he sets 

 The same look which she turned when he rose." 



Moore. 



So sings the Irish bard, but I rather fancy it is a poetical 

 illusion, for I have watched the flowers and never could 

 convince myself of the fact. However, we may hope that 

 as the Sunflower has become so fashionable an ornament in 

 the present day, some of its devoted lovers will strive to 

 ascertain the truth of the tradition. 



As a not very graceful badge of the votaries of sestheti- 

 cism, we see the garish orange Sunflower w r orn in hats and 

 bonnets, as ornaments for breast and sleeves, and reproduced 

 in needle-work and other ornamental designs for the boudoir 

 or drawing-room. Eows of the gigantic flowers may now be 

 seen lolling their jolly heads in gardens and lording it over 

 the humbler and lowlier blossoms. 



We have many flowers of this wide-spread tribe of plants 

 extending through the country wherever the soil and sur- 

 roundings are favorable to their growth; especially may 

 different members of these rayed flowers be found on dry 

 plains, in open copse-woods, and on the banks of streams 

 where the soil is sandy or gravelly. 



So numerous are the varieties that it would be tedious to 

 enumerate them. One of the handsomest is H. strigosus 

 (L.). The Sunflowers form one of the distinguishing floral 

 ornaments of the Canadian plains and of the extensive 



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