It is one of the plants which make a magnificent appearance
in a tall, thin-stemmed vase, in your library. You need but one and if
you chance to find a patch you may take a plant without any
compunction of conscience, for they are usually numerous. At the top
of the smooth stem are four leaves with heart-shaped bases, gradually
tapering to points at the ends. These four pale green leaves cross
each other after the manner of a St. Andrew's Cross. Just where the
four leaves are thus joined to the stem is a cluster of some six,
eight, ten or even more, large, yellowish white, or greenish white
blossoms. Perhaps at the next set of leaves, about four inches down
the stem, there will be several other blossoms, in the axils. In the
swamps and bogs the barrel-shaped blossoms of the closed gentians are
growing larger day by day and by the twentieth of the month the
fringed gentian, known only to a favored few, here in Iowa, will show
the first of its blossoms.
* * * * *
In these last days of the summer there comes a grateful sense of the
ripeness which crowns the year. Nothing in nature has hid its talent
in a napkin. Every tree and shrub and herb has something to show in
return for the privilege of having lived and worked in a world of
beauty.
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