the
winter. The defoliation of deciduous trees is announced by the flowering
of the Colchicum; of these the ash is the last that puts forth its
leaves, and the first that loses them. Phil. Bot. p. 275.

The Hamamelis, Witch Hazle, is another plant which flowers in autumn;
when the leaves fall off, the flowers come out in clusters from the
joints of the branches, and in Virginia ripen their seed in the ensuing
spring; but in this country their seeds seldom ripen. Lin. Spec. Plant.
Miller's Dict.]

GREAT HELIANTHUS guides o'er twilight plains
In gay solemnity his Dervise-trains;
225 Marshall'd in _fives_ each gaudy band proceeds,
Each gaudy band a plumed Lady leads;
With zealous step he climbs the upland lawn,
And bows in homage to the rising dawn;
Imbibes with eagle-eye the golden ray,
230 And watches, as it moves, the orb of day.

[_Helianthus_. l. 223. Sun flower. The numerous florets, which
constitute the disk of this flower, contain in each five males
surrounding one female, the five stamens have their anthers connected
at top, whence the name of the class "confederate males;" see note on
Chondrilla. The sun-flower follows the course of the sun by nutation,
not by twisting its stem. (Hales veg. stat.) Other plants, when they are
confined in a room, turn the shining surface of their leaves, and bend
their whole branches to the light. See Mimosa.]

[_A plumed Lady leads_. l. 226. The seeds of many plants of this class
are furnished with a plume, by which admirable mechanism they are
disseminated by the winds far from their parent stem, and look like a
shuttlecock, as they fly. Other seeds are disseminated by animals; of
these some attach themselves to their hair or feathers by a gluten, as
misleto; others by hooks, as cleavers, burdock, hounds-tongue; and others
are swallowed whole for the sake of the fruit, and voided uninjured,
as the hawthorn, juniper, and some grasses. Other seeds again disperse
themselves by means of an elastic seed-vessel, as Oats, Geranium, and
Impatiens; and the seeds of aquatic plants, and of those which grow on
the banks of rivers, are carried many miles by the currents, into which
they fall. See Impatiens. Zostera. Cassia. Carlina.]

Queen of the marsh, imperial DROSERA treads
Rush-fringed banks, and moss-embroider'd beds;
Redundant folds of glossy silk surround
Her slender waist, and trail upon