126 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



tian really blooms much earlier than October in many places, 

 I remember once in Conway, Massachusetts, I found it on 

 Field's hill on the first of September. It is the lingering blos- 

 som that the poet celebrates and the woodsman loves — those 

 reluctant ones that still abide in mid-autumn ; 



"Till frosts and shortening days portend 

 The aged year is near his end; 

 Then doth its sweet and quiet eye 

 Look through its fringes to the sky." 



It is an error to call this flow^er blue. Indeed, I am still 

 looking for a really blue flower. Those that are called so are 

 almost universally violet, for instance the chickory or Salvia 

 patens. I find painting the real test of color. Often the sup- 

 posed tint is wholly non-existent, but apparent from reflections 

 of light or sympathies of one hue for another. One never sus- 

 pects till he tries it, how much the pinch of white on the column 

 of the cardinal has to do with the gorgeousness of that flower ; 

 this, and the adjacent gray. I am not an artist, however, and 

 must not trespass on the preserves of my betters. 



Plants, it is well known, have their social relations, their 

 friendships and antipathies. Often they are intimate and ten- 

 der with each other. Every wood lover has knowledge of these 

 associations; as, say, of the golden ragwort with the painted 

 cup. The fringed gentian in these later days affiliates with 

 Parnassus grass, certain crimson polygalas, and an abiding- 

 group of knotweeds. With these, too, in swampy spots ma^ 

 still be found the glowing disks of the bur marigold. 



