and stout, and grow from a huge root
that weighs fifteen or twenty pounds.

The beautiful August lilies make the fields and meadows gay; the stately
pale yellow lily spotted with brown or purple, the darker yellow, and
the fiery red lily, contrasted with the white spiranthes, or
ladies-tresses.

Now the radiant heads of countless _composite_ flowers are highest and
most showy, and a walk or drive along any country road reveals such
masses of color as to arrest and enchant the most unobservant eye.

On one woodland road at Orange, New Jersey, the shades of asters, from
the deepest violet-blue and purple to the palest lilac, are
bewilderingly beautiful, while the splendid varieties of liatris, or
button snakeroot, the rose-purple and white ox-eyed daisies and white
asters, golden-rod, and the great open-eyed corn-flowers, or rudbeckias,
are certainly beyond description.

Try to find the elegant golden asters, which are more rare. At Cape Cod,
Massachusetts, at Nantucket, and on the pine barrens of New Jersey, they
may be found.

Look for the compass-plant, if you have the command of prairies. It is
not pretty, is rough and coarse-looking, but is immortalized by
Longfellow. The peculiarity consists in the arrangement of the leaves,
the lower and root leaves, which, being very large, spread out on the
open prairies, and are disposed to present their edges pointing north
and south, thus sometimes guiding the bewildered traveller.

Another beautiful prairie plant, two or three feet high, is found in dry
and sandy soils and in rocky crevices. The flowers are numerous, of a
beautiful bright blue or bluish-white, and what makes it interesting is
that it is supposed to prefer localities where lead ore prevails, and is
called lead-plant.

Now is the time for any so disposed to make a collection of _herbs_, as
they are called. In old-fashioned days these herbs were considered great
treasures, and cures for many of the ills of humanity. They were tied
carefully in bunches, and hung in the garret of the farm-house to dry.
The odor of dried herbs comes to me now as I think of a dear old
garrets--a favorite play-place of early childhood.

No child familiar with the garret of a country home can ever forget its
mysterious charm. But I must remember that I am writing of flowers, and
leave the captivating subject of garrets. Multitudes of potent herbs may
now be found in the woods, by the road-side, _everywhere_: tansy,
camomile,