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The beauty of that perfect day was upon her. I remember that her dress was like the color of its fire-weed blossoms and that the blue of its sky was in her eyes and the yellow of its sunlight in her hair and the red of its clover in her cheeks.
The fact is, and it ought to be well known to the closer student of nature, that the fire-weed makes its appearance in the "conditions" of the burnt soil, just as stramonium does in the conditions of the soil where a coal-pit has been recently burned; that is, not from seed, but from "vital units," or germs, everywhere present in the earth those taking advantage of environing conditions, just as Bacteria or Torultz spring from the proper organic infusions.
Professor Marsh, in the work to which we have already several times alluded, says: "When newly cleared ground is burnt over in the United States, the ashes are hardly cold before they are covered with a crop of fire-weed, a tall herbaceous plant, very seldom growing under other circumstances, and often not to be found for a distance of many miles from the clearing."
No living thing is seen there, nor bird, nor animal, nor insect, nor verdant plant; even the hardy fire-weed has not yet ventured to intrude on this scene of desolation, and the woodpecker, afraid of the atmosphere which charcoal has deprived of vitality, shrinks back in terror when he approaches it.
Frazer, "call this plant Neglected Everlasting, because it grows on dry wastes by road-sides, among thistles and fire-weed; but I love it for its sweetness; it is like a true friend it never changes. See, my dear, how shining its straw-coloured blossoms and buds are, just like satin flowers."
Wherever the hygrometric, thermometric, telluric, and other conditions favor, the class of vegetation indicated by the presence of these conditions makes its appearance, just as the fire-weed makes its appearance in our warm temperate zone, not from the presence of seed, but simply the presence of "conditions" the provision of man harmonizing with the prevision of nature.
"Yes, I dare say," returned Jonathan "The miller Revercomb is a good example, I imagine, of just the thing you are speaking of a kind of new plant that has sprung up like fire-weed out of the ashes. Less than half a century produced him, but he's here to stay, of that I am positive. After all, why shouldn't he, when we get down to the question?
Nell pointed out the brilliant fire-weed, blending from crimson to purple, the wild sunflower, the lovely painted-cup, old-rose in colour; and there were other strange and showy plants she could not name. Occasionally they passed a log cabin, gayly whitewashed, and with its sod roof sprouting greenly.
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