in bloom, that toward the close of the season, the common sorts may all be found together. Some of the handsomer kinds, large, and of a fine purple color, delight in low, moist spots, where, early in September, they keep company, in large patches, with the great bur-marigold, making a rich contrast with those showy golden blossoms.
It is well known that both the golden-rods and asters are considered characteristic American plants, being so much more numerous on this continent than in the Old World.
Another flower, common in our woods just now, is the Bird-bell, the Nabalus of botanists. There are several varieties of these; the taller kinds are fine plants, growing to a height of four or five feet, with numerous clusters of pendulous, straw-colored bells, strung along their upper branches. If the color were more decided, this would be one of our handsomest wild flowers; its numerous blossoms are very prettily formed, and hung on the stalks with peculiar grace, but they are of a very pale shade of straw color, wanting the brilliancy of warmer coloring, or the purity of white petals. These plants are sometimes called lion's-foot, rattlesnake-root, &c., but the name of Bird-bell is the most pleasing, and was probably given them from their flowering about the time when the birds collect in flocks, preparatory to their flight southward, as though the blossoms rung a warning chime in the woods, to draw them together. The leaves of the Bird-bell are strangely capricious in size and shape, so much so at times, that one can hardly credit that they belong to the same stalk; some are small and simple in form, others are very large and capricious in their broken outline. Plants are sometimes given to caprices of this kind in their foliage, but the Bird-bell indulges in
