JULY TO OCTOBER. 183 



American, while those that are do not, as a rule, fre- 

 quent the roadsides or the waste places around our 

 cities. The steeple bush and the cardinal ilower, for 

 instance, prefer the open country ; but tansy, chicory, 

 wild carrot, thorn-apple, and toadflax are veritable 

 tramps who keep company with each other on the 

 outskirts of every town and city. But the mullein 

 prefers the pasture land, where, on the edge of some 

 hillock, it often poses for the artist in a picturesque 

 costume of pale yellow and green, with its feet hid- 

 den among the gray stones, and its head relieved by 

 the somber background of a gray thundercloud. 

 Nothing is softer or more delicate in color than the 

 pale-green, velvety leaves when they first appear 

 above ground. The flowers bloom all summer. 



Chicory. Chicory is one of our prettiest blue 



Cichoriwm intybus. flowers ; it is blue enough to call it 

 blue, although I must call attention to the fact that 

 blue in a pure state does not exist on the petal of 

 am/ flower, wild or cultivated. I might with justice 

 except the familiar forget-me-not, whose quality of 

 color is very nearly a pure one. But chicory some- 

 times shows a very good blue, so we will not quarrel 

 with it. The little flower straps are singularly 

 like those of the dandelion, and this fact betrays its 

 close relationship with the latter flower. Ifot only 

 tliese straps, but the center of the flower (the stamens 



