The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1905-10-21
eoIDEN.RoD. AND DAISIES.

/"
/ recently said What is the most
beautiful time of the year? That is
| a question which every one answers
according to his taste. We are quite
willing to allow the spring poets to
efferyesce in their season, and we
will not deny to pessimists the pleas
ure of moralizing on the fall of the
leaf; but we would suggest to those
who cannot get up a fine frenzy
about gladness out of gloom or sink
ing to eternal slumber in a flash of
autumn glory that there is a time
which Yields to none in the abund-
ance of flowers and delicacy of COM
bination of colors, and that time is
rom now on to early frosts, and even
after-the time of the golden-rod and
daisies.
h Curiously enough, these flowers,
20 unlike each other in outward ap-
pearauce, are relatives, for they both
belong to the order of compositae,
that wonderful order we might have
said, which supplies about tenth of
the flowers of the world. Flower
ing asthey do, at the same season of
the year, and growing very frequently
side byside, golden-rod and daisies
form one of the most striking and
distinctive features of the North
American landscape. The daisies, it
is true, are not the flowers which
have INSPIRED the poets for so many
centuries-not the "wee, modest,
crimson-tipped flower" of Burns.
That is BELLS perennis of Britain and
Europe, a plant that lies low upon
the ground, with a single flower on
each stalk, totally unlike our plant,
with its towering form and branching
stem. Ours are asters, but old-fash-
ioned folk called them Michaelmas
daisies long ago, because they are in
full swing about the festival of St.
Michael and All Angels, on Septem-
Der Goth. They have even been
called Christmas daisies, because you
can often gather nosegay of them
at Christmas time in the sheltering
hooks of the woodland.
Only the initiated know how beau-
tiful these autumn flowers make the
country lanes, the paths by the river
side and the woodside; how they
hide with a mantle of surprising
beauty the neglected fences and waste
lands, and how, when other flowers
are fast disappearing, they come with
a burst compared with which the
rush of the spring flowers is as moth
ing. The fight offolk from the town
to the country is nearly even when
golden-rod and daisies come, and,
ignorant of the feast of color prepared
for them, few care to seek the wood
land in the shortening days. If they
could only realize what there is in
store for them, the cooler weather
and the genial sunshine of an Indian
summer would tempt many who can
hear natures voice when she calls
to seek the hillside and valley, where
golden-rod and daisies can be seen in
their glory.
Seek some region of woodland,
waste, and stream. If you are
botanically inclined, you can crafty
your propensity, for Gray tells us that
there are thirty-seven species OF gold
en-rod and forty-one Of asters, and
Pennsylvania is not poor in either.
Only a word to the wise. Watch an
old botanist when the tyros talk OF
golden-rod and asters. His eye
twinkles and he strokes his chin with
an air of credulity. 1t is so easy to
appear wise, but not many can chuckle
ever the treasure of real knowledge.
So do not talk about any wonderful
"fnds." But, however it may be,
botanically, if you will, or for the
mere Joy of living, steal off some fine
afternoon and enjoy the time of the
golden-rod and daisies, for it only
comes once year.