Riverby

everlasting, commonly called mouse-ear, that grows nearly everywhere by the roadside or about poor fields? It begins to be noticeable in May, its whitish

son advances, by their outstripping the males in growth. Indeed, they become real amazons in comparison with their brothers. The staminate or male plants grow but a few inches high; the heads are round, and have a more dusky or freckled appearance than do the pistillate; and as soon as they have shed their pollen their work is done, they are of no further use, and by the middle of May, or before, their heads droop, their stalks wither, and their general collapse sets in. Then the other sex, or pistillate plants, seem to have taken a new lease of life; they wax strong, they shoot up wit

came over their mamm?-shaped flower-heads as June approached. I looked for the males; to the east, south, west, none could be found for hundreds of yards. On the north, about two hundred feet away, I found a small colony of meek and lowly males. I wondered by what agency fertilization would take place,-by insects, or by the wind? I suspected it would not take place. No insects seemed to visit the

always in little communities, till I perceived, what I might have read in the botany, that the plant is perennial an

But here is a lily with the bulb deep in the ground. How it gets there is well worth investigating. The botany says that the bulb is deep in the ground, but offers no explanation. Now it is only the bulbs of the older or flowering plants that are deep in the ground. The bulbs of the young plants are near the top of the ground. The young plants have

If, in late May or early June, after the leaves of the plant have disappeared, he finds the ground where they stood showing curious, looping, twisting growths or roots, of a greenish white color, let him examine them. They are as smooth and as large as an angle-worm, and very brittle. Both ends will be found in the ground, one attached to the old bulb, the other boring or drilling downward an

hite. How it came to be called adder's-tongue I do not know; probably from the spotted character of the leaf, which might suggest a snake, though it in no wise resembles a snake's tongue. A fawn is spotted, too, and "fawn-lily" would be better than adder's-tongue. Still better is the name "trout-lily," which has recently been proposed for this plant. It blooms

n it, and have thought it one of the most beautiful of our wild flowers. Its two leaves stand up like a fawn's ears, and this feature, with its recur

-shaped flower is always hidden beneath the moss or dry leaves, as if too modest to face the light of the open woods. As a rule, the one thing which a plant is anxious to show and to make much of, and to flaunt before all the world, is its flower. But the wild ginger reverses the rule, and blooms

ower, but the corolla never opens; it always remains a closed bud. I used to think that this gentian could never experience the benefits of insect visits, which Darwin showed u

the bumblebee does successfully enter the close

d in its head and body until only the hind legs and the tip of the abdomen were sticking out. In this position it made the circuit of the blossom, and then emerged, resting a moment to brush the pollen from its head

ng and falling, its flowers appear, giving out an odor along the bushy lanes and margins of the woods that is to the nose like cool water to the hand. Why it should bloom in the fall instead of in the spring i

There is so much in a name. To find out what a thing is called is a great help. It is the beginning of knowledge; it is the first step. When we see a new person who interests us, we wish to know his or her name. A bird, a flower, a place,-the first thing we

left the train and came in my direction, plucking the flowers right and left as she came. But they were all unknown to her; she did not know the name of one of them, and she wished to send them home to her father, too. With what sati

just plucked from the edge of the wa

ke a jewel,"

ll lately; but I hear it is now appearing along certain

d, holding up a blue flower wit

y at home along the Hudson, and in the valleys of some of its tributaries among the Catskills. It is a rough, ha

t at home." She went on filling her hands with flowers, and I gave her the names of each,-sweet clover or melilotus, a foreign plant; vervain (foreign); purple loosestrife (foreign); toad-flax (foreign); chelone, or turtle-head, a native; and the purple mimu

engine summoned us all aboard

r), cutting through parts of three counties, was greatly relieved by noting the various flowers by the roadside. First my attention was attracted by wild thyme making purple patches here and there in the meadows and pastures. I got out of the wagon and gathered some of it. I found honey-bees working upon it, and remembere

striking. The clusters of purple pendents have a very decorative effect. This is a species of nabalus, of the great composite family, and is sometimes called lion's-foot. The flower is cream-colored, but quite inco

long as the first joint, crown the top of the stalk, set in a rosette of green leaves. It is one of our rarer flowers, and a very interesting one, well worth getting out of the wagon to gather. As I drove through a swampy part of Ulster County, my attention was attracted by a climbing plant overrunning the low

sp. It is very difficult for persons who have had no special training to learn the names of the flowers from the botany. The botany is a sealed book to them. The descriptions of

flowers arranged according to color, as white flowers, blue flowers, yellow flowers, pink flowers, etc., with place of growth and time of blooming; also lists or sub-lists of fragrant flowers, climbing flowers, marsh flowers, meadow f