22 EIVERBY 



zons in comparison with their brothers. The stami- 

 nate or male plants grow but a few inches high ; the 

 heads are round, and have a more dusky or freckled 

 appearance than do the pistillate; and as soon as 

 they have shed their pollen their work is done, they 

 are of no further use, and by the middle of May, 

 or before, their heads droop, their stalks wither, and 

 their general collapse sets in. Then the other sex, 

 or pistillate plants, seem to have taken a new lease 

 of life; they wax strong, they shoot up with the 

 growing grass and keep their heads above it; they 

 are alert and active ; they bend in the breeze ; their 

 long, tapering flower-heads take on a tinge of color, 

 and life seems full of purpose and enjoyment with 

 them. I have discovered, too, that they are real 

 sun-worshipers; that they turn their faces to the 

 east in the morning, and follow the sun in his course 

 across the sky till they all bend to the west at his 

 going down. On the other hand, their brothers 

 have stood stiff and stupid, and unresponsive to any 

 influence of sky and air, so far as I could see, till 

 they drooped and died. 



Another curious thing is that the females seem 

 vastly more numerous, — I should say almost ten 

 times as abundant. You have to hunt for the 

 males; the others you see far off. One season I 

 used every day to pass several groups or circles of 

 females in the grass by the roadside. I noted how 

 they grew and turned their faces sunward. I 

 observed how alert and vigorous they were, and 

 what a purplish tinge came over their mammae- 



