It was dry. Not for a long time had there been any rain, and everywhere plants were suffering. Wherever Peter went he found them drooping, excepting in the swamp and along the Laughing Brook. It was especially hard on those plants which grew on high and sandy places. Peter felt that it was useless to look for flowers. He felt that if he should find any new ones they would probably be so wilted that he would be sorry he had found them.

But Peter couldn't sit still day after day. He just had to go roaming about some, even though he had nothing special to look for. So it happened that one day he took it into his head to go up in the Old Pasture. He didn't look for flowers. In fact, they never once entered his head. He just wandered about without any purpose at all.

Finally his wanderings brought him to an open place on the side of a hill. It was a place on which jolly, round, bright Mr. Sun shone all day long. It was so dry there that the grass had turned brown and looked as dead as in winter. Right in the middle of it he came upon a plant perhaps a foot and a half high, which seemed not to know that everything about it was drying up.

"Goodness!" exclaimed Peter. "That plant looks as if it has a fur coat!"

It is not to be wondered at that Peter thought so. The stalk seemed to be covered with white wool. It was the same with the undersides of the long, narrow leaves. These were as narrow as blades of grass, those near the bottom being a little broader than those near the top. Above, they were a very pale green, but the undersides were woolly.

Peter didn't know it, but it was this very wool that made it possible for this plant not to mind the dry, hot weather. That wool prevented such moisture as was in the plant from being drawn out as in the case of most other plants.

At the top was a flat head of what appeared to be pearly-white, little flowers with yellow centers. Each was what a White Pond Lily might look like if it were no bigger than one of these. Some of the unopened ones were round and looked like pearls.

Peter touched one of those little flowers, and to his surprise found that what he supposed were petals were not soft and smooth, as had been all petals he had ever touched. Instead, they were dry and stiff. It was as if jolly, round, bright Mr. Sun had dried them instead of wilting them.

The truth is they were not petals at all. They were what are called bracts, which really are tiny leaves changed in form. The true flowers formed the brownish-yellow center. They were tiny florets, each one a little tube, five-parted at the mouth. They do not have both stamens and pistils. The flowers of one plant will have stamens but no pistils, and the flowers of another plant will have pistils, but no stamens.

Peter had found a plant of many names. It is commonly called the Pearly Everlasting. It is also known as the Large-flowered Everlasting, Moonshine, Silverleaf and None-so-pretty. It is a member of the Thistle family, although it does not look in the least like a Thistle. As soon as those flower heads are widely open, the florets in the center turn brownish. Those stiff petallike bracts remain pearly white, and do not wilt after being picked. That is why the plant is called Everlasting. It may be kept for months looking much the same as when picked.

Not very far from where he found the Everlasting, Peter came upon another plant also in bloom, a plant which he took the greatest care not to touch. Again he was reminded of an acquaintance of his. It wasn't the flower that reminded him this time, but the plant itself. He had come upon one of the Prickly Porkies of the plant world, one which is quite as much respected as is Prickly Porky the Porcupine. It was the Common Thistle. It was a big, sturdy plant quite three feet high, and with a number of branches. The stalk was covered with a fine, whitish wool. But to this Peter gave hardly a glance. It was the leaves that interested him most. They were long, dark green, and the edges were cut into all sorts of shapes. Each little projection was armed with a long, stiff spine or point as sharp as a needle.

Here was a plant that was literally covered with little spears, a plant so protected that it had nothing to fear from those who might pass that way. No one who has once carelessly brushed against a Thistle will be so careless again.

On the ends of the branches were big, purple flower heads which looked much like soft, silky plumes quite an inch and a half across. They looked as if bunches of soft, purple silk had been gathered into big, green, egg-shaped cups which were covered with long, very sharp, white little spines.

Later in the season, when the flowers had gone by and the seeds were ripe, those green cups would be filled with a mass of white, fluffy silk, much like that of the Dandelion when it has gone to seed. There are several Thistles and they are all alike in this respect and in having their leaves armed with sharp little needles. The flower heads, however, vary much in size. This one Peter had found is the most common of all and has many names. It is known as the Bur Thistle, Bull Thistle, Spear Thistle, Blue Thistle, Plume Thistle, Button Thistle, Bell Thistle, Bank Thistle and Roadside Thistle. Like all the Thistles, it is a pest to the farmer.

Two members of the same family Peter had found, the Common Thistle and the Everlasting, yet in appearance there was nothing to suggest that there was the least relationship. Before he reached home Peter found a third member of the family, and this was no more like the other two than they were like each other. It was growing near the fence along the edge of the Old Pasture. It was tall, as tall as a tall man. The stalk was very hairy and for its whole length was crowded with lance-shaped, saw-edged leaves slightly wrinkled and very hairy on the underside.

At the top was a broad plume of tiny yellow flowers which seemed to have caught and held within themselves the gold of the sunshine. Peter knew this flower at first glance, as everybody does. It was the Goldenrod, one of the earliest of the many members of that branch of the Thistle family, for, as I told you before, it is included in that family.

This particular Goldenrod was the Tall or Hairy or Wrinkled-leaved Goldenrod, sometimes called Bitterweed. It cannot be told from its relatives by its height, because it is not by any means always tall. Indeed, sometimes it is not more than a foot high. The fact that it is one of the earliest to bloom, together with the slightly wrinkled form of the leaves, will help you to recognize it. There are so many Goldenrods and some are so much alike that only those who have made a long study of them can tell them apart.