Yellow and Otaage 



purple asters add the final touch of imperial splendor to the autumn 

 landscape, already glorious with gold and crimson, is any parterre 

 of Nature's garden the world around more gorgeous than that 

 portion of it we are pleased to call ours ? Within its limits eighty- 

 five species of golden-rod flourish, while a few have strayed into 

 Mexico and South America, and only two or three belong to 

 Europe, where many of ours are tenderly cultivated in gardens, as 

 they should be here, had not Nature been so lavish. To name all 

 these species, or the asters, the sparrows, and the warblers at sight 

 is a feat probably no one living can perform ; nevertheless, cer- 

 tain of the commoner golden-rods have well-defined peculiarities 

 that a little field practice soon fixes in the novice's mind. 



Along shady roadsides, and in moist woods and thickets, 

 from August to October, the Blue-stemmed, Wreath, or Woodland 

 Golden-rod (S. caesia) sways an unbranched stem with a bluish 

 bloom on it. It is studded with pale golden clusters of tiny florets in 

 the axils of lance-shaped, feather-veined leaves for nearly its entire 

 .length. ^ Range from JVlaine, Ontario, and Minnesota to the Gulf. - 

 (NOiSpecies is prettier, more dainty. (Illustration facing p. 356.) 



In rich woodlands and thicket borders we find the Zig-zag 

 or Broad-leaved Golden-rod (S. flexicaulis) — S. latifolia of Gray 

 —its prolonged, angled stem that grows as if waveringly uncer- 

 tain of the proper direction to take, strung with small clusters of 

 yellow florets, somewhatafter the manner of the preceding species. 

 But its saw-edged leaves are ovate, sharply tapering to a point, 

 and narrowed at the base into petioles. It blooms from July to 

 September. Range from New Brunswick to Georgia, and west- 

 ward beyond the Mississippi. 



During the same blooming period, and through a similar range, 

 our only albino, with an Irish-bull name, the White Golden-rod, or 

 more properly Silver-rod (S. bicolor), cannot be mistaken. Its 

 cream- white florets also grow in little clusters from the upper axils 

 of a usually simple and hairy gray stem six inches to four feet 

 high. Most of the heads are crowded in a narrow, terminal pyram- 

 idal cluster. This plant approaches more nearly the idea of a rod 

 than its relatives. The leaves, which are broadly oblong toward 

 the base of the stem, and narrowed into long margined petioles, 

 are frequently quite hairy, for the silver-rod elects to live in dry 

 soil, and its juices must be protected from heat and too rapid 

 transpiration. 



In swamps and peat bogs the Bog Golden-rod (5. uliginosa) 

 sends up two to four feet high a densely flowered, oblong, ter- 

 minal spire, its short branches so appressed that this stem also has 

 a wand-like effect. The leaves, which are lance-shaped or oblong, 

 gradually increase in size and length of petiole until the lowest 

 often measure nine inches long. Season, July to September. 

 Range, from Newfoundland to Pennsylvania, and westward be- 

 yond the Mississippi. 



349 



