Praise for the Kings of the 1915 Autumn Garden: Goldenrod and Aster

"...the black-eyed Susans are closing their long campaign, chicory is losing its last pale blue, and the aster and goldenrod are left not exactly blooming alone but the kings of the floral world."

September 25, 1915

On this day, the Burlington, Vermont newspaper shared a little article about September flowers, focusing mainly on the goldenrod and the aster and their numerous varieties.

It ended with these marvelous run-on sentences:

Most conspicuous among the flowers of the roadside and pasture, these last days of September, are the goldenrod and aster. [...]

One need not be a botanist to find and identify either plant, for we see them on every hand, making a successful struggle for life under most adverse conditions, and giving a splendor of beauty to the dull, gray days of the fall.

Its closing days show a wealth of floral loveliness that may not soon be duplicated.

And this is true of the goldenrod and aster's rich relatives of the garden.

The cultivated asters are a blaze of glory in countless gardens, and cannas and hardy chrysanthemums and other things aplenty show no sign of old age.

Thus, latest autumn is connected with the earliest spring, for the floral succession has been unbroken, from the time when the snowdrop blossomed amid ice and snow, through a long line of flowers of every hue and shape, to this 25th of September, when the black-eyed Susans are closing their long campaign, chicory is losing its last pale blue, and the aster and goldenrod are left not exactly blooming alone but the kings of the floral world.