The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1908-09-16

The closed gentian blooms now In
company with its more admired AMI
notable sister, the fringed sentian
and We may feel inclined to choose
this peculiar flower with its unopened
petals, with its apparently belated
and therefore incomplete blossoming
as especially expressive and typical
CT the season. Here, too, is the royal
aster company, blue and purple, vio-
let and pale lavender, gathered in
ieathery masses along the roads, or
girdling the woods around with their
banked and profuse luxuriance. The
beauty that these flowers confer upon
the late autumnal fields Is peculiar
TO this country, for England owns but
one native aster. Only in her gardens
do the asters bloom in profusion, and
there they are the American variety
Just such gold-centered, purple BIOS
SONS as we see about us today.
As blue is the keynote of the late
autumn flowers, so crimson and scar
let are the prevailing colors among
fruits. The strawberry bushs Grim
son capsule splits open to expose and
discharge its scarlet-covered seeds,
and whether we examine the straw
berry bush proper or the creeping va
riety. We will find the same brilliant
coloring. High in the trees, and drap-
ing the thickets, are the bittersweet
berries, equally bright with scarlet
stems are decorated with their bright
rcd berries also. If the green leaves
persist until late fall, as they often do,
. stalk of this shrub forms as fitting
End brilliant a winter house decora-
ticn as the familiar, imported holly.
The wild sarsaparilla's orange and
straw colored leaves remain on the
stems far into the autumn also, and
beneath the frost-curled foliage we
see the clusters of dark blue berries.
The lingering leaves are as beauti
full as the glossy fruit, and show all
gradations in color from deep cadmi-
nm to its palest tints, with here and
there a more sienna or yellow ocher
tinge. The ginseng, member of the
same family and of somewhat similar
habit of growth, has berries of a bril-
iiant red, and so this family, as well,
continues the scarlet theme that runs
through so many of the autumn fruits.
How intimately these late growths,
particularly the flowers, reflect the
spirit of the season. The spring flow
Prs so perfectly suggest their season
that stranger. without knowledge Of
the time which gave them BIRTH.
would still, by the appearance of the
blossoms, associate them with the
spring months. The prevailing color
being white with pink and purple
flushes, or faint and delicate blue, is
certainly suggestive of the dawn and
of the opening year, while the autumn
tints and shades are suggestive OF
the after time, of the sunset and af-
terglow. The rich red cardinal flower
which comes in late summer is deep
est in hue of all our wild flowers, and
these later ones We have been con-
sidering are just as suggestive. The
goldenrod's prevailing. orange is surely
reflection of our autumn sunsets,
and the blue asters deepening to pur-
pie answer to the bars of rain-cloud
that accompany them. In the gen.
tians this color deepens until in the
closed gentian it is so full and signifi.
cant as to symbolic the darkening
twilight of the year, the storm blue
of the approaching night-clouds
while the yellow, filmy stars Of the
.witch-hazel, which come still later, to
close the floral season, are the faint
lines of light, the last yellow CLEANS
that break low down on the horizon
before night and winter wholly close