And have you ever noticed how gracefully these great companies are arranged?  For the golden-rods are like elm-trees in their forms:  some grow in one single, tall plume, bending over a little at the top; some in a double or triple plume, so that the nodding heads may bend on each side; but the largest are like the great Etruscan elms, many branches rising gracefully from the main stem and curving over on every side, like those tall glass vases which, I dare say, you have all seen.

Do not forget, when you are looking at these golden plumes, that each one, as it tosses in the wind, is rocking its hundreds of little dwellings, with the fathers, mothers, babies, and all.

When you go out for golden-rod and asters, you will find also the great purple thistle, one of those cousins who has adopted the same plan of living.  It is so prickly that I advise you not to attempt breaking it off, but only with your finger-tips push softly down into the purple tassel; and if the thistle is ripe, as I think it will be in these autumn days, you will feel a bed of softest down under the spreading purple top.  A little gentle pushing will set the down all astir, and I can show you how the children are about to take leave of the home where they were born and brought up.  Each seed child has a downy wing with which it can fly, and also cling, as you will see, if we set them loose, and the wind blows them on to your woollen frock.  They are hardy children, and not afraid of any thing; they venture out into the world fearlessly, and presume to plant themselves and prepare to build wherever they choose, without regard to the rights of the farmer’s ploughed field or your mother’s nicely laid out garden.

More of the community flowers are the immortelles, and in spring the dandelions.  Examine them, and tell me how they build their houses, and what sort of families they have; how the children go away; when the house is broken up; and what becomes of the fathers, mothers, and aunts.