the load! And what tons upon tons of it does the world need! There are more or less acceptable substitutes, but always far inferior to the wheat that gives white bread. One of these, buckwheat, a cultivated polygonum, is now in much favor with the peasants, and ought to be with artists also, on account of its wonderfully rich color. It is called sarrasin in France, because the Moors took it into Spain, whence it came northward. It grows easily on soil too poor for wheat, and you may now see many little fields of it up amongst the rocks in the poorer and wilder districts. Early in September it is in the full richness of its color, the stalks being of a beautiful red, that is easily heightened when there are warm tones in the general light, which often happens at that season of the year.

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August-Soapwort.

XLI.

Soapwort-Use of Soapwort - Horsemint Common Mint - Wild Carrot-Vervein - Polygonum-Change - Dock-leaves, their Color - Hornbeam - Juniper — Bracken — Heather - Cherry - Mountain-Ash.

ET us take a last look at the wild flowers before

LE

the season for them is quite over. We never could have omitted all mention of that handsome plant, the common soapwort, or Saponaria, which in August is prodigal of its large flowers, pink or nearly white, in dense corymbs at the summit of the stem. Every housewife in country places where the plant grows, and where people are simple enough and sensible enough to accept a benefit directly from Nature without going to a shop for it, every housewife so situated well knows that to put this plant into her washing-tub is as good as a lump of soap. It grows abundantly by the streams here, so those two great aids to cleanliness, soap and water, are given by Nature together. The saponaria is not only useful but beautiful: a stately, handsome plant, that holds quite an important place, especially on the little islets in the streams; but the pale tender color of its flowers is not so conspicuous as the brilliant yellow of the senecio, for example, which abounds at the same season. However, it is not merely for brilliancy that plant may have pictorial value: sometimes the very

opposite of brilliancy may be the reason why a judicious artist would care for it. There is horsemint, whose pale cottony leaves are very valuable as a cool gray green. It makes great masses in some places, and has much the same qualities as the mullein, except as to the flowers; for whilst those of the mullein are of a fine lemonyellow, the tiny flowers of borsemint merely make a sort of pale purplish gray. The flowers of common mint are much more visible, and have some effect in quantity. The large white umbel of the wild carrot is extremely common at this season, but cannot be said to add much to the beauty of foregrounds, except perhaps by giving a certain lightness. We must not omit that sacred plant, the vervein, which the Romans used in their religious ceremonies, and which in war-time was carried by heralds as the white flag of truce is now. The Druids had a great respect for it also, and only culled it after a sacrifice. This plant appears to make a great fuss at starting near the ground with very big leaves, to end meagrely at the top, where the twigs and flowers are so thin and small. The tiny pale violet flowers are, however, effective in the same way, though not to the same degree, as those of the forget-me-not. Sometimes they fill a ditch, for hundreds of yards, with their innumerable constellations.

One of the most beautiful and important of all aquatic plants is the amphibious polygonum. Its rosy flowers stand up boldly above the surface of the water, whilst its long green leaves float upon it. This is a good plant to study for pictures that have a pond or a

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August-Change.

stream in the foreground, as it detaches itself well, and the flat leaves give a good horizontal surface, whilst the erect flower supplies a vertical object of the greatest use for contrast. There is a good contrast of color, too, between the flower and the leaf.

It would be tiresome to prolong this into a mere catalogue, and the limits of these sylvan talks are nearly reached. Vegetation never stands still, but there is a time when it appears to pause, before the change towards decay. Yet even then the change has already begun, and you have only to look around you to find evidences of the coming destruction. In meadows and pastures the docks soon take their rich deep red of leaves and fruit, the stalks being yellowish streaked with red, and quite harmonious; they are a most important. element of landscape. The curled dock makes especially magnificent color, with its dark-red stalks and leaves. Some of the leaves of hornbeam turn pale yellow, and others dark red. You have them pale yellow, dark red, and fresh green, quite on the same branch or twig. The juniper turns red altogether, much resembling the tint known to painters and colormen as light red; but this happens capriciously, as it seems, to one plant, whilst others in the same place remain quite green as in sumAt the same time the bracken is just beginning to turn yellowish brown at the tips and edges of the leaves. The crude violet purple of the heather is entirely gone, and in its place we have a sad brown in the flowers. The leaves of the wild cherry-trees are beginning to turn red, and the robinia leaves are turning

pale yellow. But where in all Nature is there such a red as the vermilion berries of the rowan-tree, or mountainash, the sorbier des oiseaux? There are such prodigal quantities of it, too! I know a little village churchyard, with a tiny old gray church, and just along the wall there grows a row of rowan-trees that look like the trees in the garden of Aladdin when the fire of sunset is upon them; and there is a place near a mountain village where the road winds between an avenue of them, a sight to see in the autumn!