176 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 



have also found a clump of fire -weed plants which have pure 

 white blossoms, which I have plucked for three years. I have 

 come across no one who has ever seen the like have you?" 



Yes, my friend, I have. There are a whole 

 brood of them. Their whiteness is only skin-deep, 

 for they are the black sheep in Dame Nature's 

 household. But she discountenances their pranks, 

 and, as a rule, stirs herself to head off their mis- 

 chief. It must be admitted, too, that they occa- 

 sionally put on a very pretty face to 

 cover their waywardness, and their 

 lives would prove harmless if the 

 evil "culturists" would only cease to 

 play the devil with them ; for it is 

 from scions such as these that our 

 prized "varieties" are begotten. In 

 a burned mountainous tract I once 

 found a number of white Epilobium 

 such as my friend describes, and I have 

 met with them occasionally since in my 

 walks. It is a lapse in the plant that is im- 

 itated in various other species abnormal 

 freaks, analogous to the albino among ani- 

 mals, which is recognized as a degenerate type. 

 For years I saw from my studio window an al- 

 ^' / most pure white English sparrow. I have seen a 



^>_ ' white robin, a very pale bluebird, and even as I 



write a snowy pink -eyed squirrel is roving among 

 the trees near my country home. 



In addition to the fire-weeds, I have found albinos 

 of red clover, closed gentian, purple -flowering rasp- 

 berry, blueflag, burdock, purple Eupatorium, lupine, blue 

 violet, and bird-foot violet, and have heard of a white 

 cardinal-flower and white fire-lily. But the prettiest of all these 

 wayward children is the white-fringed gentian. I know a certain 

 plant which every year sends up its candelabra of snowy blossoms, 



FIRE-LIMES. 



