THE MID-AUGUST FLOWERS. 237 
Those arrow-headed leaves in the pool suggest the 
Sagittaria very plainly, and close by it I may expect to 
find the stone-crop. In the pasture I must have un- 
wittingly trodden upon the pennyroyal, for its odor fills 
the air. That—bush I had, almost called it— plant 
covered with large yellow flowers and buds, with cut 
leaves, is a Gerardia, and this little plant in the moist 
roadside or low-lying meadow, with rose-purple flowers 
of the same somewhat tubular shape, is another of the 
family. I shall not have to travel far along the rail- 
road embankment at this season to find blue-curls and, 
probably that outcast among the grasses, Cenchrus 
tribuloides. In the untrimmed vegetation of the road- 
side I look now for the last Avaéza. Early in May I 
found A. ¢rifolia, at the end of the month came A. 
nudicaulis, extending its presence into June; as it 
passed away A. hispida appeared, followed closely by 
A. quinquefolia; now A. racemosa comes, the last of its 
family. 
A quarter of the plants of this list belong to the 
great order Composite. The leaders of the aster family 
are at hand. Their broad banner of purple and white 
will be fully unfolded by and by. The snake-head or 
turtle-head lifts up into the sunlight its spike of white 
flowers, from among the grasses and sedges and golden- 
rods of the swamps. The twining stems of the Amphz- 
carpea, with its purplish nodding racemes, help to fill 
