232 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Along my daily pathway have thronged the shepherd's-purse 

 and the purslane. The former passed the winter as seedlings from 

 self-sowed seed in early autumn, and closely hugged the frozen 

 soil unprotected, or perchance benignly covered with a blanket 

 of snow. When the November blasts are howling and whirling 

 down the snows, some belated plants — or, more properly, some 

 hasty specimens ahead of their time — are left blooming alone. 

 The pepper-grass (Lepidium virginicum) is closely related to the 

 shepherd's-purse, and has the same times and seasons and habits 

 of growth. On the other hand, the hot-blooded purslane, which 

 was able to sprawl at full length upon the superheated ground in 

 August, and thrive, to the great annoyance of the tidy gardener, 

 falls a lifeless victim at the first firm grasp of the frost-king. In 

 its obeseness it blackens with the rising sun, and soon leaves little 

 else behind except the thousands of almost microscopic seeds, for 

 which the icy winter only seems to serve as a fitting introduction 

 to new activities when the long-delaying spring arrives. Look 

 into the vegetable garden, if you please, and recall the two classes 

 of plants therein grown for the table. There are sorts, the seeds 

 of which may be sown as soon as the ground can be worked ; 

 while other seeds are of the tender sort and can not be committed 

 to the earth until the settled weather has come and the danger 

 of the laggard frosts is past. Toward the end of the season there 

 is a like distinction. In short, some of the garden favorites must 

 make all their growth during warm weather, and perish with the 

 frosts of autumn ; while others can be gathered at pleasure, even 

 left in the earth until the following spring, and improved by the 

 seeming neglect. Of meadow and pasture crops there are few 

 that flower later than the red clover. This may be found in full 

 bloom until the snows cover the melliferous heads for the balance 

 of the year. The alsike also is a late bloomer, but the white sort 

 gives up much earlier. 



Let us turn now to the wild plants which are in flower upon 

 or after the first of October in the climate of central Iowa — a 

 prairie region — where autumn is more than past its middle by 

 that date. At the outset, it is manifest of the plants in flower 

 that a large number belong to the sunflower family. Among the 

 most conspicuous are the asters and golden-rods, and the most 

 beautiful of them all is the Aster Novce Anglice, This is a com- 

 mon species, and because at home in New England — as the name 

 indicates— is none the less attractive, and one, the charm of whose 

 purple rays of the large heads never flags. I have been upon 

 long tramps through the low meadow-land where this species is the 

 chief blossom, and never tired of the variability which the many 

 plants exhibit. The leaves are clasping as if a strong affection 

 existed between the blade and the stem from which it sprang. 



