And in the fall I once passed through the hills of New York and Massachusetts. It was Thanksgiving Day. The matchless American forests were then in their greatest glory. Every hill seemed to have brought out its choicest holiday garment and was calling for admiration. So richly blended are the reds, the yellows, and the greens that one cannot see how people can do business with such delights for the eye spread out before them. Why they do not come en masse and join in this holiday of the trees is more than I can understand. It seems as if the Creator of heaven and earth had reserved for the home of liberty the most gorgeous colorings that prismatic light is susceptible of bearing, and thrown them all down in luxurious profusion for the delectation of the people who should shake off the man-serving spirit and come here to breathe the air of freedom and rejoice with nature through the ten days of her gorgeous Thanksgiving time.
THE CINERARIA.
PROF. WILLIAM K. HIGLEY,
Secretary Chicago Academy of Sciences.
IN THE early days of the Columbian Exposition, before people had ceased to wonder at the unexpected and unusual sights, there were beautiful displays of plants in flower, on a scale never before attempted, at least in this part of the world.
Those wise enough to respond to the invitation to visit the long, low green houses in Jackson Park, before the more pretentious Horticultural Building was ready for use, will never forget the royal mass of blossoms which greeted their eyes as they passed through long aisles of bloom.
The announcement that the cineraria was on exhibition meant little to many, but to those who found their way to the park during the chilly spring days and patiently trudged over unfinished paths, and through rubbish and incompleteness, the announcement opened the door to a sight so wonderfully fine and complete, so astonishing, and so delightful, that to look was to exclaim and admire, and to admire was to remember, and, months after, to long for another sight of that billowy mass of pinky-purplish bloom.
The Compositæ, the family of plants to which the cinerarias belong, contains about seven hundred and sixty genera and over ten thousand species, embracing approximately one-tenth of all the flowering forms. This is the largest family of plants and includes the goldenrod, the sunflower, the aster, the chrysanthemum, the thistle, the lettuce, the dandelion, and many others. The species are widely distributed, though more common in temperate or hot regions, the largest number being found in the Americas.