I30 PLANTS GROWING IN MOIST SOIL. 



Its colour and setting are lovely, and one cannot but fancy it 

 might open its petals and be pleasant and chatty if it would. 

 But it won't ; its mood is selfish and its lobes are not fashioned 

 in the orthodox way. Of course there is a great deal of theory 

 in its closed corolla ; it protects its delicate organs from the 

 cold of the late season, and all other evils to which they might 

 be exposed. Happily, we can turn to the fringed gentian, 

 which is more considerate of our feelings. A strong suspicion 

 is afloat that if the closed gentian did let out its petals they 

 would not be so beautifully fringed as those of its relative, and 

 this is the reason, perhaps, that it is so sulky. 



5NEEZEWEED. SWAMP SUNFLOWER. {Plate LXVI) 



Hdhiium auinmnale. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Composite. Yellow. Scentless. General. Late summer and autumn. 



Flower-heads: growing singly, or clustered loosely in a corymb and com- 

 posed of both ray and disk flowers ; the rays three to five-cleft at the summit. 

 Leaves: alternate ; lanceolate ; thick. Stem : one to six feet high ; smooth ; 

 angled ; branched. 



The swamp sunflower, while greatly pleasing the eye by 

 illuminating the low fields and swamps in the autumn, is on the 

 high road to making itself a most disagreeable member of the 

 floral world. The flowers of the older plants are very poison- 

 ous to animals. Usually their instinct prevents them from eat- 

 ing of them ; but the plant is one of those insidious things for 

 which a taste can be cultivated. Cows have been known to 

 cultivate this fatal taste, when their milk and meat were made 

 bitter. If the plant be eaten in great quantities the animal 

 dies. In a dried and powdered form it causes violent sneezing, 

 for which purpose it is well known in medicine. Once that it 

 has established itself in a field it is most difficult to exterminate 

 and adds one more to the trials of the poor farmer. 



H. 7iudiflbrum, purple-head sneezeweed, grows in the south 

 and west. It blossoms from June until October. The name 

 purple-head alludes to the disk flowers, as the rays are yellow 

 with a brownish base. 



