Yellow and Orange 



to receive any vitalizing dust brought to them, it follows that 

 quantities of vigorous seed must be set. 



"There is a natural rotation of crops, as yet little under- 

 stood," says Miss Going. " Where a pine forest has been cleared 

 away, oaks come up; and a botanist can tell beforehand just 

 what flowers will appear in the clearings of pine woods. In 

 northern Ohio, when a piece of forest-land is cleared, a particular 

 sort of grass appears. When that is ploughed under, a growth 

 of the golden coreopsis comes up, and the pretty yellow blossoms 

 are followed in their turn by the plebeian rag-weed which takes 

 possession of the entire field." 



The charmingly delicate, wiry Garden Tickseed, known in 

 seedsmen's catalogues as Calliopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria), which 

 has also locally escaped to roadsides and waste places eastward, 

 is at home in moist, rich soil from Louisiana, Arizona, and Ne- 

 braska northward into Minnesota and the British Possessions. 

 From May to September its fine, slender, low-growing stems are 

 crowned with small yellow composite flowers whose rays are 

 velvety maroon or brown at the base. (Coreopsis = like a bug, 

 from the shape of the seeds.) 



Larger or Smooth Bur-marigold ; Brook 

 Sunflower 



(Bidens laevis) Thistle family 

 (B. chrysanthemoides of Gray) 



Flower-heads Showy golden yellow, i to 2^ in. across, numer- 

 ous, on short peduncles ; 8 to 10 neutral rays around a dingy 

 yellowish or brown disk of tubular, perfect, fertile florets. 

 Stem : i to 2 ft. high. Leaves : Opposite, sessile, lance-shaped, 

 regularly saw-toothed. 



Preferred Habitat Wet ground, swamps, ditches, meadows. 



Flowering Season August November. 



Distribution Quebec and Minnesota, southward to the Gulf States 

 and Lower California. 



Next of kin to the golden coreopsis, it behooves some of the 

 bur-marigolds to redeem their clan's reputation for ugliness ; 

 and certainly the brook sunflower is a not unworthy relative. 

 How gay the ditches and low meadows are with its bright, gen- 

 erous bloom in late summer, and until even the golden-rod 

 wands turn brown ! Yet all this show is expended merely for ad- 

 vertising purposes. The golden ray florets, sacrificing their fer- 

 tility to the general welfare of the cooperative community, which 

 each flower-head is in reality, have grown conspicuous to attract 



360 



