SUMMER IN A BOG. 29 



On a rocky bank in June a bed of prairie 

 wild onions is very pretty; here and there the 

 star grass shines yellowly among the dead 

 leaves. 



At one point, beside a steep bank, a group 

 of lizard 's-tail droops slender white flower- 

 spikes above the stream. 



The blue-eyed grass rejoices in the damp 

 and sunny openings ; the loosestrifes in several 

 varieties bear it company. 



The monkey-flower wades out into the brook ; 

 the conobea lingers at the edge, her feet laved 

 in the ripples. 



The forget-me-not of the marshes, with 

 golden eye bordered in blue; the turtle-head 

 and hedge-hyssop, its neighbors; the Indian 

 paint-brush of the damp meadows nearby; the 

 dodder, twining its pale pink parasitic clusters 

 among the clover, its orange threads and cymes 

 in beds of mint, or its yellow, glomerate masses 

 amid the coarse weeds and bushes and the tall 

 stems of the sunflowers, — these are a few of 

 the floral denizens of the bog and its borders 

 and of the interlacing streams. 



More rarely, on sunny slopes in a setting of 

 the most fertile soil the papaw basks and ripens 

 near the edge of the woods or on the banks 

 of rivers. The green leaves turn to gold as 

 the custard-apples ripen and lose their astrin- 



