There are about eighty-five different species of golden-rod in the United States, but the task of naming them all that grow in one locality is not difficult for the nature-lover. The above list is practically all that grow hereabouts. And it is so with the asters. There are about two hundred fifty species of asters, and most of them are found in North America. But usually a dozen or fifteen only are to be found in the average locality. Here, among others, may be found the beautiful aster Novae-Anglia, or New England aster with blue or rose-colored rays and a yellow center, the blossoms fluffy and large, often fully two inches across. In some parts of the east it is called "Farewell to Summer," but it may usually be found in the latter part of August. This year it was in full bloom as early as August 21. Another beautiful aster to be found on prairies and dry banks is the aster sericeus, or silvery aster, with silvery-white silky leaves and large, violet blue heads, the rays sometimes two-thirds of an inch long. One of the earliest and most common of the asters is the aster sagittifolius, or arrow-leaved aster, with white or pale blue flowers, and its companion, the heart-leaved aster. More beautiful is the lovely smooth or blue aster, the aster laevis, with clasping, oblong tapering leaves and sky-blue heads, sometimes violet, fully an inch across. The aster multiflorus, or dense flowered aster, is bushy with small rigid, crowded leaves, and a multitude of small heads crowded on the spreading branches, the rays generally white like big balls of snow. The aster salicifolius has a slender stem much branched above, long and narrow leaves, with violet, violet-purple or rarely white rays, and aster prenanthoides or crooked stem aster, may be told by its zigzag stem, its oblong, saw-toothed leaves and its violet rays. Two other beautiful species found hereabouts are the aster azureus, which blooms from August until after frost, with a slender but stiff and roughish stem, and many bright violet-blue flowers with short rays; and the aster Shortii, or Short's aster, which is found on banks and along the edges of woods and does not usually bloom until September. It has a slender stem and thickish leaves, heart-shaped at the base; its rays number from ten to fifteen and are usually bright blue, sometimes violet blue.
September brings us the first and one of the most beautiful of the gentians, the white gentian. We are accustomed to think of the gentians as brilliantly blue, but the first one to adorn the waste places where the horses could not take the mower, is this white gentian. It is one of the plants which make a magnificent appearance in a tall, thin-stemmed vase, in your library. You need but one and if you chance to find a patch you may take a plant without any compunction of conscience, for they are usually numerous. At the top of the smooth stem are four leaves with heart-shaped bases, gradually tapering to points at the ends. These four pale green leaves cross each other after the manner of a St. Andrew's Cross. Just where the four leaves are thus joined to the stem is a cluster of some six, eight, ten or even more, large, yellowish white, or greenish white blossoms. Perhaps at the next set of leaves, about four inches down the stem, there will be several other blossoms, in the axils. In the swamps and bogs the barrel-shaped blossoms of the closed gentians are growing larger day by day and by the twentieth of the month the fringed gentian, known only to a favored few, here in Iowa, will show the first of its blossoms.
In these last days of the summer there comes a grateful sense of the ripeness which crowns the year. Nothing in nature has hid its talent in a napkin. Every tree and shrub and herb has something to show in return for the privilege of having lived and worked in a world of beauty. Catbirds on the eve of their departure for the southland are feasting on the red and yellow wild plums, and the crab apples are beginning to give forth a faint fragrance which will grow more pronounced from now until October. The amber clusters of the hop are poured in profusion over the reddening fruit of the hawthorn. Farther on is the brook Eschol where the purple grapes are hanging. The snowy clusters of the sweet elder, which were so beautiful in July and early August, have developed into ample clusters of juicy berries which bring memories of the wine that grandmother used to make. Flocks of robins are feeding greedily on the abundant wild cherries. Thickets of panicled dogwood are feeding stations for other migrants; already the crimson fruit-stalks have been stripped of half their white berries. These native fruits are so many and so varied, they make the walk a constant delight. Each plant is a revelation. Who ever saw for the first time the huge clusters of fruit hanging from the wild spikenard on the face of the cliff and did not thrill with the charm of a great discovery? Each cluster of ruby, winey berries is as large as a hickory-nut and the clusters are aggregated upon stalks so as to resemble huge bunches of grapes. For contrast there are the little bunches of whitish berries on the low-growing false spikenard; they are speckled with reddish and gray dots as if they might be cowbird's eggs in miniature. Jack-in-the-pulpits show club-shaped bunches of scarlet berries here and there among the grasses. On the wooded slopes there are the white fruits of the baneberry on its quaintly-shaped red stalks, the pretty fruit clusters of the moonseed and the smilax. The scattered berries of the green-brier will be black in winter, but their September hue is a bronze green of a delicate shade which artists might envy. It will take another month to ripen the drupes of the black-haw into their blue-black beauty; now they are green on one side and red on the other, like a ripening apple. It's a fine education to know just which fruits you may nibble and which you must not eat. Red-stalked clusters of black berries hang from the vines of the Virginia creeper among leaves just touched with the hectic flame that tells of their passing, all too soon. At the sign of the sumac, tall torches of garnet berries rise. Down the bank, the bittersweet sends trailing arms jeweled with orange-colored pods just opening to display the scarlet arils within. Crimsoning capsules give the burning bush its name; this may well have been the bush at which Moses was directed to take off his sandals because he was treading on holy ground. Large, triangular membranaceous pods hang thickly from the white-lined branches of the bladdernut. Cup-like leaves of the honeysuckle hold bunches of scarlet berries. So on and on the creek leads to new beauties of color and form, new delights for taste and smell. Every plant has some excuse for its being, something of the loveliness and fragrance of the summer stored in its fruits. There is a lesson for the mind and the soul to be gathered with the fruit of these shrubs and vines. Summer still works with tireless energy. She has done with the leaf and the bud and the blossom; all her remaining strength is being spent in filling the fruits before the night of the white death comes.
Since the first of the month the little catkins have been creeping from the twigs of the hazel, and their tender, spring-like green is quite as interesting as the ripening bunches of nuts. These little catkins will hang short and stiff all winter, but when the ice goes out of the rivers and the first frog croaks in the springtime, they will lengthen, soften and grow yellow with their abundant pollen. Squirrels are busy among the acorns and the hickory nuts; the split husks and shells are thickly strewn beneath the trees. Red-headed woodpeckers are gathering acorns and pushing them behind the flaky bark of the wild cherry for use during the late fall; sometimes a little family of the redheads remains all winter. Chipmunks are carrying acorns to their granaries; they dash into their holes with a squeak as if in derision at your slow-footed manner of walking.
Sumac flames from the fence corners and lights up the country lanes. It is the first of the shrubs to announce in fiery placards the coming spectacle of the passing of the summer. Next is the Virginia creeper,—see where it flames up the wild cherry tree, scattering crimson leaves to the grass beneath. Once in a day's journey along the creek one may find a small red maple. In the middle of its foliage is a small, flame-like spot which grows larger day by day. Gradually some of the other maples catch the color fire, first a little soft maple by the shore of a muddy bayou, next a small sugar maple on the rocky slope. The great spectacle does not come until October, but the placards announcing it grow more numerous and vivid day by day. Blackberry leaves are splashed with crimson; daily the blood-red banner of the sumac grows larger and more striking. Walnuts and hickories begin to lose their yellow leaves; patches of yellow appear on the elms and the lindens; though the mass of the foliage remains until October, many leaves flutter down daily, and it is possible to see twice as far into the thicket as in June.
"The wine of life keeps oozing, drop by drop;
The leaves of life keep falling, one by one."