Nat. Oed. Composite. 
Rudbeclcia fulgida. 
r E Cone Flower is one of the handsomest of our rayed flowers. 
The gorgeous flaming orange dress, with the deep purple 
disk of almost metallic lustre, is one of the ornaments of 
all our wild open prairies-like plains during the hot months 
of July, August and September. We find the Cone-Flower on the 
sunny spots among the wild herbage of grassy thickets, associated 
with the wild Sunflowers, Asters and other plants of the widely diffused 
Composite Order. 
During the harvest months, when the more delicate spring 
flowers are ripening their seed, our heat-loving Rudbeckias, Chrysan¬ 
themums, Sun-flowers, Coreopsises, Ox-eyes, and Asters, are lifting 
their starry heads to greet the light and heat of the sun’s ardent 
rays, adorning the dry wastes, gravelly and sandy hills, and wide 
grassy plains, with their gay blossoms ; 
“ Bright flowers that linger as they fall, 
Whose last are dearest.” 
Many of these compound flowers possess medicinal qualities. Some, 
as the thistle, dandelion, wild lettuce, and others, are narcotic, 
being supplied with an abundance of bitter milky juice. The 
