From Blue to Purple 



Preferred Habitat — Fields, waysides, rocky soil, originally escaped 



from gardens. 

 Flowering Season — ^J une — September. 

 Distribution — Quebec westward, south to Michigan and Maryland. 



Children know the live-forever, not so well by the variable 

 flower — for it is a niggardly bloomer — as by the thick leaf that 

 they delight to hold in the mouth until, having loosened the mem- 

 brane, they are able to inflate it like a paper bag. Sometimes 

 dull, sometimes bright, the flower clusters never fail to attract 

 many insects to their feast, which is accessible even to those of 

 short tongues. Each blossom is perfect in itself, i.e., it contains 

 both stamens and pistils; but to guard against self-fertilization it 

 ripens its anthers and sheds its pollen on the insects that carry it 

 away to older flowers before its own stigmas mature and be- 

 come susceptible to imported pollen. After the seed-cases take on 

 color, they might be mistaken for blossoms. 



As if the plant did not already possess enough popular names, 

 it needs must share with the European golden-rod and our com- 

 mon mullein the title of Aaron's rod. Sedere, to sit, the root of 

 the generic name, applies with rare appropriateness to this entire 

 group that we usually fmd seated on garden walls, rocks, or, in 

 Europe, even on the roofs of old buildings. Rooting freely from 

 the joints, our plant forms thrifty tufts where there is little apparent 

 nourishment; yet its endurance through prolonged drought is 

 remarkable. Long after the farmer's scythe, sweeping over the 

 roadside, has laid it low, it thrives on the juices stored up in fleshy 

 leaves and stem until it proves its title to the most lusty of all folk 

 names. 



Purple or Water Avens 



{Geum rivale) Rose family 



Flowers — Purple, with some orange chrome, i in. broad or less, 

 terminal, solitary, nodding; calyx 5-lobed, purplish, spread- 

 ing; 5 petals, abruptly narrowed into claws, forming a cup- 

 shaped corolla; stamens and pistils of indefinite number; the 

 styles, jointed and bent in middle, persistent, feathery below. 

 Stem: i to 2 ft. high, erect, simple or nearly so, hairy, from 

 thickish rootstock. Leaves: Chiefly from root, on footstems; 

 lower leaves irregularly parted; the side segments usually 

 few and small; the i to 3 terminal segments sharply, irregu- 

 larly lobed; the few distant stem leaves 3-foliate or simple, 

 mostly seated on stem. Fruit: A dry, hairy head stalked in 

 calyx. 



Preferred Habitat — Swamps and low, wet ground. 



Flowering Season — May — July. 



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