THE MIDSUMMER FLOWERS. 225 
it deigns to abide. May it live there long and prosper 
till it fills the swamp with its beauty, and helps us to 
see with the mind’s eye those gorgeous masses of color 
which cover the slopes of the southern Alleghanies and 
fill the higher valleys of the Himalayas! 
The fruiting ferns are now abundant, forming 
eleven per cent. of this list. They thrive in the cool 
damp woods, though they do not dread the garish day. 
They are symbols of healthy strength and vigor, and 
form a rich setting for the flowering herbs near which 
they grow. Perhaps the favorite among them is the 
delicate maiden-hair, yet the beech-fern and the shield- 
fern and the ostrich-fern are equally worthy of our 
admiration. 
In the dry sandy slope of the railroad embank- 
ment I have often found the wild rye-grass growing 
luxuriantly. Further south it frequently forms a con- 
siderable portion of native meadow lands and makes a 
coarse hay. It was counted by Dr. Vasey among the 
agricultural grasses of the United States, and it may 
be yet found worthy of cultivation. These little dark- 
brown, almost black, heads towering among the grasses 
of the lowland meadows are probably the flowering 
spikelets of the beak-rush, one of the great order Cy- 
peracee, which in midsummer forms a large, if not 
conspicuous, part of the vegetation of this region. It 
is not difficult to recognize at once the relationship be- 
29 
