Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Sept.,  1921. 
Visiting  Old  Friends. 
597 
midst  of  which  the  tall  and  stately  Turk's  cap  lily,  having  just  com- 
pleted flowering,  thrusts  its  fruit  up  conspicuously,  while  along  the 
very  edge  of  the  road  the  day  lily,  too,  is  noted  in  the  fruiting 
stage.  Here  a  rag  weed  flaunts  its  hay  fever-compelling  blooms  and 
there  the  coarse  sow  thistle  stands  up  in  vulgar  arrogance. 
The  tall  wool  grass  beckons  us  to  take  it  along  for  a  decoration 
lasting  all  the  year,  while  the  beggar's  ticks  and  tickseed  dare  one 
to  venture  within  their  reach. 
An  old,  neglected  clearing,  once  a  cultivated  field,  affords  a 
rich  botanical  repast.  Here  is  the  brilliant  bloom  of  the  orange 
milkweed,  almost  recumbent,  while  quite  near  and  much  higher  are 
the  purple  globular  flower  clusters  of  the  common  milkweed,  al- 
ready beginning  to  shed  their  silky  plumes  from  earlier  borne  flow- 
ers. Underfoot  is  the  self-heal,  while  its  distant  relative,  the  horse- 
mint  shows  in  scattered  clumps  of  purplish  brown. 
The  delicate  purple  Gerardia  monopolizes  the  open  spaces, 
while  just  inside  the  dry  woods,  at  the  edge  of  the  clearing,  is  seen 
its  yellow-flowered  cousin,  the  downy  false  foxglove.  Along  the 
hedgerow  is  a  purple-flowered  spirea,  and  a  patch  of  tansy  and  a 
mulberry  tree  are  evidences  of  a  former  habitation,  of  which  the 
ruins  of  an  old  cellar  wall  give  confirmation.  Here,  too,  is  blue  ver- 
vain and  scattered  about  in  profusion  may  be  seen  black-eyed  Susans, 
wild  sunflowers  and  boneset- 
Golden  rod  and  asters  are  plentiful  both  as  to  numbers  and 
variety.  One  of  the  conspicuous  features  of  a  cleared  patch  of  this 
sort  are  the  clumps  of  wild  indigo,  almost  as  regular  in  form  as 
though  a  landscape  gardener  had  trimmed  them,  with  the  blue-green, 
characteristic  foliage  which  defies  all  effort  at  preservation  in  a 
herbarium. 
Then,  too,  there  aire  the  clovers,  the  red  and  white,  and  some- 
times the  Alsike,  usually  seen  in  isolated  patches.  The  silky  soft 
heads  of  the  rabbit  clover,  also  known  as  old  field  clover,  from  its 
tendency  to  spread  where  cultivation  has  been  abandoned,  give  a 
grey  mistiness  to  the  vista,  on  looking  across  the  level  stretches,  that 
is  peculiarly  attractive. 
Patches  of  vetch  in  riotous  exuberance  catch  the  eye  and  in 
all  directions  we  can  see  the  lacy  blooms  of  the  wild  carrot,  slightly 
convex  in  the  early  stages,  but  reversing  this  form  as  the  flowers 
pass  maturity,  the  final  fruiting  clusters  looking  like  a  bird's  nest  on 
the  end  of  a  stem. 
