30 
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
open, and assume their natural position. Rain and wind have 
no effect upon the closing and unclosing of the traps of these 
carnivorous plants. 
Neiv York City. 
HE autumn is peculiarly an American season. Cold 
waves sweep down from the far north fresh with the 
ozone of prairie and tundra bearing an indescribable something' 
which tells us that summer is nearly gone and that winter is 
approaching. After the frosts and gales of the equinoctial 
period have passed, over rugged New England hills, about the 
Great Lakes, far out on the prairies and throughout the defiles 
of the western highlands, there comes creeping a great wave 
of color clothing the land in the beauty of the autumn woods ; 
the glorious sunset of the year. No other country has the 
cold waves so characteristic in North America, Indian summer 
is hardly known elsewhere. In no other land can be found any- 
thing to be compared with the beauty of our woods in autumn. 
All nature tends to cause the autumn to become a season 
of reflection, of crowding memories of the dead days 'Svhich 
we have loved long since and lost awhile". The falling leaf, 
the flight of migratory birds toward their southern home, the 
meadows brown and sere which so lately smiled in living 
green, all speak tenderly of the past, and in the mute language 
of suggestion they whisper of coming change. This spirit of 
autumn calm, reflective, mingling recollections of the past with 
hopes of the future, runs through a great part of our American 
literature. 
Our characteristic autumn flowers are chiefly peculiar to 
North America. The asters and golden-rods, comprising to- 
gether over a hundred species in the eastern states alone, are 
hardly represented in other countries. More than a dozen 
FLOWERS OF LATE AUTUMN. 
WALTER ALBION SQUIRES. 
