August and September Plants. 



289 



are at home on upland, prairie and morass. These abound 

 in all parts of the United States. They yield abundance of 

 rich, golden honey, with flavor that is unsurpassed by any 

 other. Fortunate the apiarist who can boast of a thicket of 

 Solidagoes in his locality. 



The many plants usually styled sunflowers, because of their 



resemblance to our cultivated plants of that name, which 



deck the lull-side, meadow, and marsh-land, now unfurl their 



Fig. 160. 



Fig. 161. 



GoldenrRod. 



Aster. 



showy involucres, and open their modest corollas, to invite 

 the myriad insects to sip the precious nectar which each of the 

 clustered flowers secretes. Our cultivated sunflowers, I think- . 

 are indifferent honey plants , though some think them big with 

 beauty, and their seeds are relished by poultry. But the asters 

 (Fig. 161), so wide-spread, the beggar-ticks, Bidens, and Span- 

 ish-needles of our marshes, the tick-seed, Coreopsis, also, of the 

 low, marshy places, with hundreds more of the great family 

 Composite, are replete with precious nectar, and with favor- 

 able seasons make the apiarist who dwells in their midst jubi- 

 19 



