BEE PLANTS O'F CLAYTON COUNTY 
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Fig. 24. Aster sa-licifolius, a flood plain plant 
The Bee Pastures . — The Mississippi hills of the Iowa shore 
during the later part of August and early September showed only 
foliage traces of the profuse spring flora, as here and there the 
scarlet berried Ginseng or the blue berried Cohosh, with now 
and then along a rivulet or hedged about a spring the Jewel weed, 
spangled with orange or pale yellow cornucopias and encircled by 
bumble bees buzzing in and out. The only flowering plants were 
on the surfaces of the slopes exposed to the sun. Clematis or 
Sicyos vines lay on the bushes like great white blankets, here and 
at the damp base of the cliff or in the open spaces about the 
springs. Polymnia clumps stood out against the green tangle in 
cream colored patches and along the railway banks ran the low 
white catnip colonies. Here small bumble bees and honey bees 
worked briskly in the morning and continuously on through the 
lengthening shadows of the afternoon, dipping their proboscides 
into the many flowered heads, then moving with a whirr to the 
next cluster, or, having filled their baskets with the pollen or their 
sacs with nectar, straight up from the flowers they circled and 
flew toward the distant hive. Not seldom the heavy laden worker 
