NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 
scented Pyrolas, and the Wild Roses. Many of the fair 
flowers have faded and gone, but we are not quite deserted ; 
we have yet our graceful Asters, our pretty Gayfeathers, 
our Sunflowers, Coneflowers and the blue Gentians, and 
brightening the waysides with many a gay, golden sceptre- 
like branch, our hardy, sunny Goldenrods, varying in 
color from gorgeous orange to pale straw-color, from the 
tall stemmed S. gigantea to the slender wand-like forms of 
the dwarf species, of which we possess many kinds, some 
with hoary foliage, others with narrow willow-like leaves of 
darker hue. On the grassy borders of inland forest streams 
we find the Goldenrods; they seem to accommodate them- 
selves to every kind of soil and situation. The rocky clefts 
of islands are gay with their bright colors, the moist shores 
of lakes, the sterile, dusty waysides, corners of rail-fences 
or the forest shades, no spot so rude but bears one or another 
species of these hardy plants; a coarse but grand genus, 
and not without its value. Not for ornament alone is the 
Goldenrod prized. The thrifty wives of the old Canadian 
settlers prized it as a dye-weed, and gathered the blossoms 
for the coloring matter that they extracted from them, with 
which they dyed their yarn yellow or green. 
One of the late flowering species, S. latifolia, is remark- 
able for its fragrance; it is slender in habit, the lax branches: 
trailing upon the ground in grassy woodlands. The leaves 
are large, very sharply and coarsely toothed, margined on 
the leafstalk, terminating in a slender point at the apex. 
The blossoms, which are larger than those of many of the 
taller species, are clustered in the axils of the large thin 
leaves at rather distant intervals along the slender branches; 
the silky pappus of the winged seeds is tinged with purplish- 
brown, the flowers are golden-yellow. 
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