STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
white daisy-like flowers which appear all through the 
summer; but when seen in dirty streets we overlook its 
merits and turn from it with distaste. This feeling is not 
very amiable, but it is natural to dislike whatever is vulgar, 
low and intrusive. 
WILD SUNFLOWER—Helianthus strigosus (L.). 
‘« As the sunflower turns to her god as he sets 
The same look which she turned when he rose.” 
— Moore. 
So sings the Irish bard, but I rather fancy it is a poetical 
illusion, for I have watched the flowers and never could 
convince myself of the fact. However, we may hope that 
as the Sunflower has become so fashionable an ornament in 
the present day, some of its devoted lovers will strive to 
ascertain the truth of the tradition. 
As a not very graceful badge of the votaries of estheti- 
cism, we see the garish orange Sunflower worn in hats and 
bonnets, as ornaments for breast and sleeves, and reproduced 
in needle-work and other ornamental designs for the boudoir 
or drawing-room. Rows of the gigantic flowers may now be 
seen lolling their jolly heads in gardens and lording it over 
the humbler and lowlier blossoms. 
We have many flowers of this wide-spread tribe of plants 
extending through the country wherever the soil and sur- 
roundings are favorable to their growth; especially may 
different members of these rayed flowers be found on dry 
plains, in open copse-woods, and on the banks of streams 
where the soil is sandy or gravelly. 
So numerous are the varieties that it would be tedious to 
enumerate them. One of the handsomest is H. strigosus 
(L.). The Sunfiowers form one of the distinguishing floral 
ornaments of the Canadian plains and ‘of the extensive 
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