Charles Darwin, who made so many interesting studies of the power of movement in various plants, devoted special attention to the clematis clan, of which about one hundred species exist but, alas! none to our traveller's joy, that flings out the right hand of good fellowship to every twig within reach, winds about the sapling in brotherly embrace, drapes a festoon of flowers from shrub to shrub, hooks even its sensitive leafstalks over any available support as it clambers and riots on its lovely way. By rubbing the footstalk of a young leaf with a twig a few times on any side, Darwin found a clematis leaf would bend to that side in the course of a few hours, but return to the straight again if nothing remained on which to hook itself. "To show how sensitive the young petioles are," he wrote, "I may mention that I just touched the undersides of two with a little watercolor which, when dry, formed an excessively thin and minute crust but this sufficed in twenty-four hours to cause both to bend downwards." In early autumn, when the long, silvery, decorative plumes attached to a ball of seeds form feathery, hoary masses even more fascinating than the flower clusters, the name of old man's beard is most suggestive. These seeds never open, but, when ripe, each is borne on the autumn gales, to sink into the first moist, springy resting place. The English counterpart of our virgin's bower is fragrant. TALL MEADOW-RUE (Thalictrum polyganum; T. Cornuti of Gray) Crowfoot family Flowers - Greenish white, the calyx of 4 or 5 sepals, falling early; no petals; numerous white, thread-like, green-tipped stamens, spreading in feathery tufts, borne in large, loose, compound terminal clusters 1 ft. long or more. Stem: Stout, erect, 3 to 11 ft. high, leafy, branching above. Leaves: Arranged in threes, compounded of various shaped leaflets, the lobes pointed or rounded, dark above, paler below. Preferred Habitat- Open sunny swamps, beside sluggish water, low meadows. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Quebec to Florida, westward to Ohio.