In similar places grew a "yellow daisy" (_Leptopoda_), a
single big head, of a deep color, at the top of a leafless stem. It
seemed to be one of the most abundant of Florida spring flowers, but I
could not learn that it went by any distinctive vernacular name. Beside
the railway track were blue-eyed grass and pipewort, and a dainty blue
lobelia (_L. Feayana_), with once in a while an extremely pretty
coreopsis, having a purple centre, and scarcely to be distinguished from
one that is common in gardens. No doubt the advancing season brings an
increasing wealth of such beauty to the flat-woods. No doubt, too, I
missed the larger half of what might have been found even at the time of
my visit; for I made no pretense of doing any real botanical work,
having neither the time nor the equipment. The birds kept me busy, for
the most part, when the country itself did not absorb my attention.
More interesting, and a thousand times more memorable, than any flower
or bird was the pine barren itself. I have given no true idea of it, I
am perfectly aware: open, parklike, flooded with sunshine, level as a
floor. "What heartache," Lanier breaks out, poor exile, dying of
consumption,--"what heartache! Ne'er a hill!" A dreary country to ride
through, hour after hour; an impossible country to live in, but most
pleasant for a half-day winter stroll. Notwithstanding I never went far
into it, as I have already said, I had always a profound sensation of
remoteness; as if I might go on forever, and be no farther away.
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