500 



THE THISTLE FAMILY. 



Corolla: regular campanulate ; five-cleft. Style-branches : very long. Leaves: 

 simple; opposite, with slender, smooth petioles ; cordate or slightly hastate and 

 tapering at the apex to a point; entire, or obtusely dentate. A smooth, twining 

 vine. 



Sometimes to the length of eighteen feet twines this herbaceous vine, as 

 in swampy ground it vigorously makes its way among other forms of 

 growth. The flowers especially in their pink form are pretty, and it is 

 through their arrangement rather than by the plant's manner of growth that 

 we at once connect it with the Composite. Another common name by 

 which it is designated is " boneset," but generally we prefer to reserve this 

 for the faithful old Eupatorium perfoliatum. 



HANDSOHE BLAZING STAR. 



Lacinaria clegajis. 



Flower-heads : growing prolifically in a long, cylindrical and leafy spike. Invo- 

 lucre: campanulate, the bracts usually in three series of which 

 the inner ones are lanceolate and extend into petal-like, lavender 

 tips, fluted about their margins. Corolla: regular; tubular; with 

 T\\lij/^, five, pointed lobes and pubescent on the outside. Pappus: fine; 

 rtii^^ plume-like. Leaves: simple; alternate; sessile; pointed, often 

 bluntly so at the apex ; entire ; punctate ; becoming small among 

 the flowers. Ste?ns: two to four feet high; erect; very leafy; 

 densely pubescent and arising from a round tuber. 





Lacinaricf., 



One day late in October in a low, sandy meadow 

 near Savannah, Ga., we found a goodly company 

 of blazing stars and golden-rods all growing in a 

 state of luxury fairly astonishing. Never before 

 nad we seen any that approached them in splen- 

 dour. The bold, high spikes of this particular 

 plant were so densely flowered that the finger could 

 hardly be thrust in among the blossoms. Many of them 

 were of a soft, rosy lavender shade, far more effective 

 than the white form, while others approached a deep 

 purple. Some of the spikes also were nearly a foot and 

 a-half long, an almost incredible statement to those that 

 have only gathered them further northward. In the 

 same meadow were other species of blazing stars, and, 

 as they were interspersed among tall, plume-like grasses, 

 I appreciated for the first time the full beauty of the 

 genus. 



In parts of the west, so I have been told, comets are 



