inque-foil, aster, cone-flower, fall dandelion, and
jointweed--were noticed only at Nahant; and it is further to be said
that the jointweed was found by a friend, not by myself, while the
cone-flower was not in strictness a blossom; that is to say, its rays
were well opened, making what in common parlance is called a flower, but
the true florets were not yet perfected. Such witch-hazel blossoms as
can be gathered in December are of course nothing but belated specimens.
I remarked a few on the 2d, and again on the 10th; and on the afternoon
of Christmas, happening to look into a hamamelis-tree, I saw what looked
like a flower near the top. The tree was too small for climbing and
almost too large for bending, but I managed to get it down; and sure
enough, the bit of yellow was indeed a perfectly fresh blossom. How did
it know I was to pass that way on Christmas afternoon, and by what sort
of freemasonry did it attract my attention? I loved it and left it on
the stalk, in the true Emersonian spirit, and here I do my little best
to embalm its memory.

One of the groundsels (_Senecio viscosus_) is a recent immigrant from
Europe, but has been thoroughly established in the Back Bay lands of
Boston--where I now found it, in perfect condition, December 4th--for at
least half a dozen years. In Gray's "Flora of North America" it is said
to grow there and in the vicinity of Providence; but since that account
was written it has made its appearance in Lowell, and probably in other
places. It is a coarse-looking little plant, delighting to grow in pure
gravel; but its blossoms are pretty, and now, with not another flower of
any sort near it, it looked, as the homely phrase is, "as handsome as a
picture." Its more generally distributed congener, _Senecio
vulgaris_,--also a foreigner--is, next to the common chickweed, I should
say, our very hardiest bloomer. At the beginning of the month it was in
flower in an old garden in Melrose; and at Marblehead Neck a
considerable patch of it was fairly yellow with blossoms all through
December and January, and I know not how much longer. I saw no
shepherd's purse after December 27th, but knawel was in flower as late
as January 18th. The golden-rods, it will be observed, are absent
altogether from my list; and the same would have been true of the
asters, but for a single plant. This, curiously enough, still bore five
heads of tolerably fresh blossoms, after all its numberless companions,
growing u