BIRD-BELLS. 
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in bloom, that toward the close of the season, the common sorts 
may all be found together. Some of the handsomer kinds, large, 
and of a fine purple color, delight in low, moist spots, where, ear- 
ly in September, they keep company, in large patches, with the 
great bur-marigold, making a rich contrast with those showy 
golden blossoms. 
It is well known that both the golden-rods and asters are con- 
sidered characteristic American plants, being so much more nu- 
merous on this continent than in the Old World. 
Another flower, common in our woods just now, is the Bird- 
bell, the Nabalus of botanists. There are several varieties of 
these; the taller kinds are fine plants, growing to a height of 
four or five feet, with numerous clusters of pendulous, straw-col- 
ored bells, strung along their upper branches. If the color were 
more decided, this would be one of our handsomest wild flowers ; 
its numerous blossoms are very prettily formed, and hung on the 
stalks with peculiar grace, but they are of a very pale shade of 
straw color, wanting the brilliancy of warmer coloring, or the 
purity of white petals. These plants are sometimes called lion's- 
foot, rattlesnake-root, &c., but the name of Bird-bell is the most 
pleasing, and was probably given them from their flowering about 
the time when the birds collect in flocks, preparatory to their 
flight southward, as though the blossoms rung a warning chime 
in the woods, to draw them together. The leaves of the Bird-bell 
are strangely capricious in size and shape, so much so at times, 
that one can hardly credit that they belong to the same stalk ; 
some are small and simple in form, others are very large and ca- 
pricious in their broken outline. Plants are sometimes given to 
caprices of this kind in their foliage, but the Bird-bell indulges in 
