A Window in Arcady 
October 2. —October is a month of fruit rather than 
of flowers, but there is at least one wild blossom that we 
find in perfection this month, and of all Flora’s train it is 
one of the quaintest. This is the sneezeweed, which 
revels in the alluvial soil along the margins of streams, 
and is- readily recognized by the little round balls of cen¬ 
tral bloom surrounded by a circlet of drooping yellow rays. 
A side view of this blossom reminds one of a tiny straw hat 
with the brim pulled down all around. It is a lover of 
cool weather, almost rivaling the garden chrysanthemum 
in this respect, and may be found blooming even in No¬ 
vember. Its very unpoetic name is derived from the fact 
that the dried flowers and leaves possess the property of 
inducing violent sneezing. On this account the plant has 
a place in medicine, for some of the ills that flesh is heir 
to are relieved by a good, honest sneeze or two rightly 
timed. 
After a long summer spent in the comparative obscurity 
of commonplace green, our democratic friend, the poke- 
weed, has donned the imperial purple, and is making a 
brave show in fence rows and by the borders of woods. 
Its robust stems and branches are full to bursting with 
the rich color, which has flowed down the mid-rib of the 
leaves and overrun into the blades. The branches are now 
loaded with their racemes of black berries, the crimson 
juices of which we prized as children for the manufacture 
of what we were pleased to call red ink—a most illusive 
fluid, the only virtue of which was that it cost nothing, for 
it would keep no trust reposed in it and would fade in a 
short time quite off the paper. The pokeweed, like the en- 
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