But with that coquette’s cold glances the leaves blaze into fire—a consuming passion of love. The Sumach and its kin, the various sorts of Lacquer trees, are aflame first; but beware of breaking their glowing branches to carry home to warm your takenomo, for the juice may poison you, and bring out a horrid red rash. Then creepers, one after another, are lighted up like strings of lanterns at an evening fête. The Virginia Creeper is the best, and wreathes the Cryptomeria trunk with scarlet and deep crimson. The Japanese think that this plant steals the blood from the sacred tree, so near the ground the stem is cut, and the vine above is left to die out in ineffectual fire.
On sweeps September. The hills are pinky silver with that loveliest of grasses Eulalia japonica. Hazel bushes and Birches have taken on a luminous pale gold, and Asters, by the path, spell Autumn in their starry blooms. Dozens of other Compositæ have appeared, Michaelmas Daisies, Arnica, pale blue Scabious, wild Geranium, and tiny straggling wild Pinks, Toad Flax, Lespedeza or Indigo dressed in mauve and rose colour, and a Gentian, not much unlike that which was the prize of September in my American childhood’s day. Monkshood or Aconite, regally, superbly blue, is everywhere; the mere naming of it is a delight, recalling the happy hours spent in gathering its blossoms or sketching among them in
