STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
YELLOw Coutsroot—Tussilago Farfara (L.). 
A large proportion of our flowers of midsummer and 
Autumn are of the Composite Order, but in the spring 
they are rare, with a few exceptions such as the Early- 
flowering Everlasting, the Fleabanes and the Coltsfoot. 
The first flower that blossoms is the Coltsfoot (T'ussilago 
Farfara—u.), which breaks the ground in April with its 
scaly leafless stem and single-headed orange-yellow rayed 
flower. It is a coarse, uninteresting plant, not common 
excepting in wet clayey soil; seldom found in the forest. 
It is the earliest plant of the Canadian spring and prized 
on that account and for its medicinal virtue, real or 
imaginary. Both flower and leaf are larger than the 
British species, but its habits are similar. 
In July, August and September our rayed flowers pre- 
dominate, especially in the two latter months; it is then, 
when the more delicate herbaceous flowers are perfecting 
their seeds, that our hardy Sunflowers lift up their showy 
heads and seem to court the glare of the summer sunshine; 
it is then that we see our open fields gay with Rudbeckias, 
Chrysanthemums, Ragworts, Goldenrods, Thistles and 
Hawkweeds. In the forest we find our White Eupatoriums, 
Prenanthes and Fireweeds. On all waste and neglected 
spots the wild Chamomile abounds, as if to supply a tonic for 
agues and intermittents. The beautiful Aster family may 
now be seen in fields, by waysides, on lonely lake-shores, in 
thickets, on the margins of pools and mill-dams, or waving 
its graceful flowery branches on the grassy plains and 
within the precincts of the forest. There are species for 
each locality—white, blue, purple, lilac, pearly-blue—with 
many varieties of shade, height and foliage; some species 
graceful, bending, and spreading, others stiff, upright and 
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