The large, spreading leaves grow on a stalk as if they had nothing to do with anything else; but the young botanist who may grasp this plume of leaves will find that the root leads along under-ground, till suddenly up comes another plant—a tall stem with panicles of purplish flowers. All these freaks or peculiarities become delightful to the observant eye.
The ground-nut, or wild bean, is a very handsome climber, and peculiar in appearance. The clusters of waxy flowers are rich brown and white, growing very thick, and having the scent of violets. The tubers are often eaten.
The wild kidney-bean is found in copses and along road-sides from Connecticut to Illinois. It climbs high from a perennial root, with clusters of small bright purple flowers.
In rich woodlands in the Middle States and west the pea-nut is very interesting to young searchers. The plant bears two kinds of flowers, the upper ones ripening no fruit, but the lower or under-ground ones bearing the well-known pea-nuts.
Try to find a remarkable plant belonging to the convolvulus family, the wild-potato vine, or "man of the earth." It is not very easily overlooked. Several stems spring from the same root, growing and twining seven or eight feet high. The leaves are large, and of various shapes—heart-shaped, pointed, and fiddle-shaped. Three or four large blossoms, several inches broad, grow in clusters; the flowers are white, with purple in the tube. This remarkable vine is found in sandy fields and by road-sides from Connecticut to Illinois and south.
A large plant grows by the end of an old country bridge near Canaan, Connecticut. The stems are long 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.