BOUNCING-BET AND HER FRIENDS. 



469 



the impression left on the 

 mind as one passes by 

 patches of this too little 

 observed wayfarer. But 

 the real grace and beauty 

 of the plant is best seen on 

 plucking some stalks in full 

 bloom and studying them 

 leisurely indoors. There is 

 more grace and softness 

 about the common linaria 

 in early autumn, particu- 

 larly if August has been 

 wet, than earlier in the sea- 

 son, when the stalks 

 stiffer and the racemes less 

 crowded and curved. I 

 was surprised enough one 

 September day, upon put- 

 ting a few tall slender 

 stems, ending in full flower- 

 clusters, into a brown stone 

 jug to see the effect which 

 they give. But few buds 

 were left and t h e short 

 crowded racemes of wide open blossoms 

 had an exquisite downy softness. They 

 have little of the stiffness of their relatives, 

 the snapdragons. I hardly know where 

 else one could find, in a single blossom, 

 such a study in yellows. Beginning with 

 the fragile elongated spur, we find it vary- 

 ing from a translucent amber to a faint 

 greenish yellow. Coming up the outside of 

 the corolla - tube, the satiny coat grows 

 lighter in color, sometimes fading almost to 

 white. On looking at the racemes from a 

 little distance, one gets an impression of 

 pale green, down among the flowers. This 

 is caused by shimmering green tints on spur 

 and tube as well as by the pale green of the 

 calyx, the short flower-stems, and the occa- Sj^^gas**^ 

 sional tiny bracts scattered between the 

 flowers. The pure well-defined yellows do 

 not show themselves on the outside of the 

 blossom-tube, but when one comes to the 

 turned-back lower lip there begins a series 

 of hues varying from delicate canary, near 

 the margin, to the rich deep cadmium ridge 

 that changes inside the cup to shades of 

 orange. Two soft plush-like lines of 

 cadmium are pathfinders for those insects 

 which seek the nectary, away down in the 

 extremity of the spur, sometimes an inch 

 and more from the closure of the lips. 



The stamens, always curved to make the 

 same precise little pattern against the inside 

 of the pale thin upper lip, display still 

 another tint in their four buff anthers. 



1 OAD-FLAX ^Lu 



Outdoors the foliage has a dusty look, but this dis- 

 appears within doors, and the numerous linear 

 leaves of whitish green, falling from the light 

 green stem at all angles, are so interlaced as to 

 make a neutral background for the flower-clusters. 



The foliage of the cypress-spurge presents the 

 same dust-besprinkled appearance as that of the 

 toad-flax, with which it not infrequently associates. 

 I suppose its popular name was given to this com- 

 mon spurge because its leaves were thought t.j> 

 resemble those of the graceful cypress-tree, but to 

 my mind the plebeian " tree-moss," by which name 

 as a child I knew it, does 

 not even suggest the beau- 

 tiful dark drapery of the 

 " poets' gloomy cypress " 

 This spurge is, however, 

 ke the cypress, a fre- 

 quenter of graveyards, 

 and i t s round clumps 

 faithfully mark out many 

 a long-neglected mound. 

 For its hardiness and 

 persistence it deserves 

 praise, otherwise I have 

 never been able to care 

 for it, though assuredly it 

 belongs with my little 

 band of garden exiles. 



One of the best-known 

 members of this hardy 

 tribe of plant-wanderers, 

 on the border-land be- 

 tween weeds and culti- 

 vated species, is the com- 

 mon purple-flowered live- 

 forever {Seditm tele- 

 pJitiim); " frog-plant " it 

 is often called by children 

 who play with its leaves, 

 loosening the epidermis, 

 on the lower side of the 

 leaf, from the parenchy- 

 ma, by gently pinching it 

 between thumb and fin- 

 ger until it can be blown 

 up into a little bladder 

 which somewhat resem- 

 bles a small green frog. 

 For some reason, this 

 sedum has acquired a 

 habit of flowering but in- 

 frequently and irregular- 

 ly — perhaps on account 

 of the change from the 

 rocks or sandy soil which 

 the stonecrops naturally 

 affect in their European 

 home to the rich loam of 



