erosion control, its seeds and foliage furnish food for birds and rabbits, 
and the plants form good nesting cover for bobwhite and other birds. 
Lupines. The lupines, another group of legumes, are much bet- 
ter developed in the West where they are frequently a colorful feature 
in the landscape. Here the individual sweetpea-like flowers are ar- 
ranged in cylindrical spikes that rise above the rich green foliage. 
Some are low annual species that blanket desertlands with brilliant 
hues of blue and pink in early spring. Others are large perennials, 
sometimes even shrubs, that are found usually in colonies at all eleva- 
tions, extending up to timberline or higher in the mountains. 
Colorful wildflowers. These add interest and beauty to the 
predominantly green background by their great diversity in color and 
seasonal variation. Such colorful natives (or, in a few instances, 
long-naturalized exotics) as goldenrod, red clover, Indian paint- 
brush, California poppy, arrowleaf balsamroot, beargrass, black-eyed 
susan, daisy, violets, asters, monkey flowers, wild phlox, milk vetch, 
beard-tongue, and partridge pea are among the numerous possibilities 
for roadside planting. 
Goldenrod. This group which contains 75 species in the North- 
east alone is well known in some of its forms to almost everyone. 
Growing in extensive colonies, as it so often does, it brightens fields 
and roadsides with its brilliant yellow panicles of minute flowers from 
midsummer to late fall. Many of the most common species are 
adapted to sterile soils, which makes them particularly useful for 
poor soils on highway slopes and shoulders. 
Asters. The wild asters also contribute vivid color to meadows 
and roadsides from midsummer through fall. There are hundreds 
of species; they range in color from deep purple through blue and 
lavender to white. Some of the white-flowered species with small 
heads of flowers often cover acres of abandoned, sterile fields, but 
many others with showy, pyramidal panicles of large purple or blue 
flower heads form attractive groups 1% to 5 feet high along our 
highways. Other species, like the large-leaved aster, are lower plants 
with fewer heads of lilac-colored flowers and attractive foliage, the 
leaves being large and heart shaped. This group grows best at the 
edges of woods where they receive at least partial shade. 
28 
Beargrass. 
F—499446 
F—169725 
Smooth hoods phlox. 
Arrowleaf balsamroot. 
F—375585 
