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Show 286 Early Western Travels [ Vol. 26 gentle race of flowers dance over the teeming earth in gayest guise and profusion. In the first soft days of April, when the tender green of vegetation begins to overspread the soil scathed by the fires of autumn, the viola, primrose of the prairie, in all its rare and delicate forms; the anemone or wind- flower; the blue dewy harebell; the pale oxlip; the flowering arbute, and all the pretty family of the pinks and lilies lie sprinkled, as by the enchantment of a summer shower, or by the tripping footsteps of Titania with her fairies, over the landscape. The blue and the white then tint the perspective, from the most [ 29] limpid cerulean of an iris to the deep purple of the pink; fromt he pearly lustre of the cowslip to the golden richness of the buttercup. In early springtime, too, the island groves of the prairies are also in flower; and the brilliant crimson of the cer-cis canadensis, or Judas- tree; the delightful fragrfence of the lonicera or honeysuckle, and the light yellow of the jasimum, render the forests as pleasant to the smell as to the eye. But spring- time passes away, and with her pass away the fair young flowers her soft breath had warmed into being. Summer comes over the prairies like a giant; the fiery dog- star rages, and forth leap a host of bright ones to greet his coming. The heliotrope and heliatUhus, in all their rich variety; the wild rose, flinging itself around the shrub- oak like a wreath of rainbows; the orchis, the balmy thyme, the burgamot, and the asters of every tint and proportion, then prevail, throwing forth their gaudy, sunburnt petals upon the wind, until the whole meadow seems arrayed in die royal livery of a sunset sky. Scarcely does the summer begin to decline, and autumn's golden sunlight to stream in misty magnificence athwart the landscape, than a thousand gorgeous plants of its own mellow hue are nodding in stately beauty over the plain. Yellow is the garniture of the autumnal Flora of the prairies; and |