The unnumbered swells of a rolling prairie, covered with tall grass, and waved by the wind, have been, by many, likened to a view of the sea with her swelling tides. But there is another feature in which there is a resemblance; for, as far as the eye can reach, each swell is so nearly the fac simile of a thousand more, on every hand, that you might as well fix the eye on one of ocean's waves, and say, this shall be a mark to guide me in my course. In fact, the unsettled prairie is without a landmark - save one - and the traveller soon becomes bewildered and lost - unless, like the mariner on old ocean's bosom, he is provided with a compass - until he discovers this one mark, Nature's own compass, guide, or finger-board, to show the wandering stranger which way to go.

This wonderful provision of Providence is the Silphium laciniatum, of the natural order Compositae; known to the people by the common name, " Rosin-weed," and which is sought by the school-boy in autumn, that he may obtain the resin which exudes from it in abundance.

The S. laciniatum can not long remain unnoticed by the observing traveller, although his attention is not attracted to it by any beauty which the coarse, rough weed possesses; but by its radical, sinuate-lobed leaves, several of which spring from each root, and generally overtop the grass by a few inches; their lobes all point the same way, which soon strikes the eye as something peculiar; he stops to examine, and soon discovers that the globes of all these leaves always point exactly north and south.

From the centre of these arises the tall flower-stalk, bearing rough, pin-nately parted or almost entire leaves ; opposite at or near the top, alternate lower down, and pointing, not, like the radicals, always north and south, but toward every point of the compass.

The flowers are yellow, much resembling, in general appearance, small sun-flowers, and, like them, turning their faces, while young, to follow the sun.

The height of the stalk is from six to twelve feet The radical leaves, with their long petioles, attain a length of two to three feet, probably even longer in very high grass.

The caulescent leaves are much smaller, and nearly or quite sessile.

This plant does not seem inclined to grow where the ground is broken up and cultivated, and probably it is destined, like the poor Indian who was formerly guided by it, (as he followed the buffalo in the chase, or hunted the deer and prairie-chicken to obtain food,) to disappear, as the white man, with his plow, shall take full possession of the soil.

[We regret to hear that you have been ill, Minnie, and gladly welcome you back to health and to the pages of the Horticulturist. We hope to hear from you often about the flowers you so dearly love - Ed].