12 RIVERBY 



The only thing I have seen in this country that 

 calls to mind the green grain - fields of Britain 

 splashed with scarlet poppies may be witnessed in 

 August in the marshes of the lower Hudson, when 

 the broad sedgy and flaggy spaces are sprinkled with 

 the great marsh-mallow. It is a most pleasing spec- 

 tacle, — level stretches of dark green flag or waving 

 marsh-grass kindled on every square yard by these 

 bright pink blossoms, like great burning coals fanned 

 in the breeze. The mallow is not so deeply colored 

 as the poppy, but it is much larger, and has the tint 

 of youth and happiness. It is an immigrant from 

 Europe, but it is making itself thoroughly at home 

 in our great river meadows. 



The same day your eye is attracted by the mal- 

 lows, as your train skirts or cuts through the broad 

 marshes, it will revel with delight in the masses of 

 fresh bright color afi'orded by the purple loosestrife, 

 which grows in similar localities, and shows here 

 and there like purple bonfires. It is a tall plant, 

 grows in dense masses, and affords a most striking 

 border to the broad spaces dotted with the mallow. 

 It, too, came to us from over seas, and first ap- 

 peared along the Wallkill, many years ago. It used 

 to be thought by the farmers in that vicinity that 

 its seed was first brought in wool imported to this 

 country from Australia, and washed ^in the Wallkill 

 at Walden, where there was a woolen factory. 

 This is not probable, as it is a European species, 

 and I should sooner think it had escaped from culti- 

 vation. If one were to act upon the suggestions of 



