I 88 3 



FALL ASTERS 1 



September 14, 1856. Now for the Aster Trades- 

 canti along low roads, like the Turnpike, swarming 

 with butterflies and bees. Some of them are pink. 

 How ever unexpected are these later flowers! You 

 thought that Nature had about wound up her affairs. 

 You had seen what she could do this year, and had 

 not noticed a few weeds by the roadside, or mistook 

 them for the remains of summer flowers now has- 

 tening to their fall; you thought you knew every 

 twig and leaf by the roadside, and nothing more 

 was to be looked for there; and now, to your surprise, 

 these ditches are crowded with millions of little 

 stars. They suddenly spring up and face you, with 

 their legions on each side the way, as if they had 

 lain in ambuscade there. The flowering of the 

 ditches. Call them travellers' thoughts, numerous 

 though small, worth a penny at least, which, sown 

 in spring and summer, in the fall spring up unob- 

 served at first, successively dusted and washed, 

 mingled with nettles and beggar-ticks as a highway 

 harvest. A starry meteoric shower, a milky way, 

 in the flowery kingdom in whose aisles we travel. 

 Let the traveller bethink himself, elevate and ex- 

 pand his thoughts somewhat, that his successors 

 may oftener hereafter be cheered by the sight of an 

 Aster NovcB-Anglice or spectabilis here and there, to 



' The photographs are of the A. Tradescanti and the A. NovoB-Anglia. 



