1G 
NIAGARA AND ITS WILD FLOWERS. 
NIAGARA AND ITS WILD FLOWERS. 
A lovely afternoon in the Indian summer! We are sitting 
near the top of the hill close above the great Horse-shoe 
Fall at Niagara, and the wealth and loveliness of the wild 
flowers, forming one of Nature’s most exquisite wild gardens, lying 
stretched out at our feet, makes us think how many of our gardening 
friends would find a deep enjoyment could they be here, and see what 
we are now seeing, and what I will try to describe, faint and feeble 
though my description must necessarily be in comparison with the 
glorious reality. The great cataract itself is of unusual magnificence. 
The early autumn rains have brought a large body of water into the 
lake, and the torrent of liquid emerald pouring over the jagged rocks 
is deep and massive, and its thunder has an unwonted tone of 
grandeur and solemnity. Far away in the distance lie the quiet 
waters of the great lake, placid and unstirred as yet, and the white 
sail of a far-off boat is seen as it gets an occasional gleam of sun while 
passing from one shore of the lake to the other. Nearer at hand, for 
the space of a mile or so before reaching their doom, the waters, 
placid no longer, foam and swirl, hurrying madly along. Every 
dancing wave-crest is turned into molten silver in the rays of the 
westering sun; every rock lying in the channel seizes a passing wave 
and whirls it upwards in masses of glittering spray, till at last, when 
on the brink of the great chasm, there comes to the rushing waters a 
sudden gathering up of irresistible strength, and they, whose only 
object hitherto seems to have been to dash themselves past all 
obstacles with reckless and ever-increasing speed, became all at once 
possessed with a sense of their awful power as they suddenly, swiftly, 
silently, drop over the perpendicular rock into the fearsome turmoil 
below, great green jewels, wide and deep, in a setting of frosted silver. 
And this solemn magnificence and grandeur has the exquisite contrast 
of so lovely and peaceful a foreground. The hillside, down which we 
are looking, and which stretches to the edge of the water, is aglow 
with vivid colour—huge golden masses of Solidago of many kinds, 
great clumps many yards wide of big, deep purple, primrose-eyed 
asters, alternate with those of a pale shimmering lilac, and with others, 
small flowered but profuse in bloom, while throughout the under¬ 
growth is a bright blue gleam, as though some spangles had fallen 
from the sky—the gift of a flower of which the name is unknown to 
me. Then from out the grass shine everywhere small bright flowers 
of many colours, among them a delicate gentian-like bloom bravely 
lifting up its head on a slender stalk. And there are many lovely 
flowers besides—a bush covered with apricot-coloured blossoms in 
shape like a Mimulus, a glowing mass of red Lythrum, and a delicately 
lovely aster, in which the lilac is replaced by a sheeny-grey pink. 
The feathery blooms of Spiraea and some white daisies shine here and 
there among their more richly-coloured sisters. It is indeed a garden 
unapproachable in its own beauty, and with its tender loveliness made 
more impressive by its wonderful surroundings. Just where we are 
