Stories of the Wildflowers of Dutchess County

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To all my friends who love the flowers, the birds, the green woods and everything that grows to help make our earth a pleasant

sojourning

place, this little

book is dedicated.

THE AUTHOR .

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By WILSON POUCHER

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. POUGHKEEPSIE,

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NEW YORK .

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The perfume of the flowers, The songs of the birds, The green of the forest trees, The murmur of a mountain brook And the hum . of the questing bees, As we wander along Through the shady dells.

What more could we ask than • these?

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I want to protest against the rapid destruction of about the last of the wild flowers and shrubs that remain anywhere in our woods and fields.

I remember well, when, as a boy, I used to wander through the woods of the Berkshires and the Taghkanics in eastern Dutchess and Columbia counties, in early spring when the ground was carpeted with trailing arbutus, that most beautiful little spring flower, and the -air was filled with .its perfume. · A little later every valley and mountain crag was covered with laurel and · rhododendron in bloom; every 'creek and lowly marsh-land abounded with lady slippers and moccasin flowers and many other beautiful plants; the ·1ow-land meadows with nodding meadow lilies. Then in the fall, the incomparable fringed gentians,-but where are they now? Practically extinct, from the mistaken zeal of so-called flower lovers.

Many of these plants are annuals and biennials _, that must propagate from seed, of which none is

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left to . furnish another crop next year because every flower has been plucked, and for what?

Only to wither in a few minutes or, at best, in a few hours. Only the hardy rhododendron and laurel were left and we . felt that many of these were safe in the remote woods a11d mountains.

Alas, a worse fate is fast overtaking them. They are at present ·being sacrificed to the commercial greed. Every year as the holiday season approaches vast quantities are being hawked about in every city and town of our land, either as wreaths or general decorations or, what is worse, sold in bunches wired to ~ome gaudy flower made of wax or paper. I. have no fault to find with wax or . . paper flowers. No more than I have with ·a painting .of a beautiful landscape or of a house. But the use of our beautiful rhododendron to make.. .. such monstrosities, and just - at this .· season too~ very largely spoils the Christmas spirit in ni~. .

Is there not some way that what are remaining of these beautiful shrubs may be saved? •. They are slow growing, like the trailing arbutus, and when once torn down or uprooted will require ... many years to recover even if then left alone.

I am glad I have lived in the generation that has passed for at 'the present ·'rate of wanton destruction none of these -will be··1eft for the next .. · , generation. .

What can appeal more deeply :to any lover of the beautiful in natu ·re, as they may wander along the _banks of streams or :through the . woods and fields, or over hills and dales, tha ·n the dark green tang!e~ of laurel an·d rhododendron, ···even though ••

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it may be in bleak November or December? Theymodestly thrive in and beautify the waste places · of the earth.

Perhaps this may seem to be a perverted sentiment, but to me it seems sacrilegious to thus wantonly destroy the most beautiful objects that God has created and placed upon the earth to make it a pleasant place for us to live.

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The And And The The And

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~now is gone Spring has come. what has she brought to me? birds, the flowers, warm sunshine the leaves on every tree.

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,I wonder what John Burroughs

would say if he could see the changes that have taken place in the woods he loved so well around his cabin, ''Slabsides'', where he labored so lovingly and patiently for so many years among the birds and flowers.

When I first knew ''Slabsides'' and the West Park woods there were everywhere trailing arbutus and mountain laurel in abundance. Wake r·obins and great masses of Dutchman's breeche~ bordered the paths a~d covered the rocky ledges everywhere. There is at · present scarcely a trace of either the laurel or the arbutus. The laurel has been ruthlessly torn down and carried away either for its blooms in late June or for its . dark green foliage in winter.

The trailing arbutus grows also on a little shrub which is never more than a few inches high, usually peeping out from under the .dead leaves that .have been its winter covering. Its undoing is largely due to the fact that it grows on a little woody stalk that is tough and difficult to break off and its roots are growing in the soft leaf mold of the woods and give way easily, because most people ,vho gather it are careless and usually pull it 8 •

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t1p root and all. l once found a beautiful patch of arbutus, growing in a little glen just west ✓of ''Slabsides'', which remained undisturbed for two or three years. Finally, one spring when I . went to see how it was getting along, I found that some one had been there before me. Every flower had ·been picked and the little shrubs very badly treat,ed. A little later on my tramp, while following .along Black Brook, a wonderful stream that flows •down through the valley a little further back in ·the hills, I came upon a clear grassy bank where ·the arbutus gatherers had very evidently sat down to arrange their flowers, for scattered in little heaps were the · roots and flowerless stems of arbutus from which they had selected and trimme(l -out the flowers. This was about ten years ago. I have visited this spot many times since but there is scarcely a trace of the arbutus left.

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Some years . ago I was returning from a pro·f essional trip, when coming over on the ferry-boat I .noticed a man with a basket filled with arb~tus, .although it was at least . two weeks too early and there was not a blossom in his whole collection, •only the buds. I asked him what he intended to do with them. ''Oh, I'll put them in water and they will come out.'' I .assured him that they ·would not and that what he was doing was only a wanton waste. His answer was that this was the •Only time that he could go and he got all there was, anyhow.

These little shrubs, as well as the rhododendron and laurel, are very slow-growing under the most favorable conditions and they seem to know '

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jt1st where they want to grow. They do not do . well in our gardens, but require a certain kind of· wood mold that has been prepar~d for them in: Mother Nature's chemical laboratory.

I wish that I might write with the pen of a Burroughs or a Thoreau. I can only tell in my crude way the story of our native laurel and rhododendron and . give warning of their certain fate and that, in a , 1ery few years at the present rate of destruction. I am told that the supply of holly is becoming practically exhau~ted and that our shrubs must take its place. Our holly is a semitropical tre~, growing throughout the middle belt of the United ·states from New York to Colorado. It gro,,rs ,rapidly as compared with laurel and rhododendron.

Perhaps one year's growth will equal that , of ten y~ars or more of these shrubs.

The holly tree grows · to . a . height of from twenty to forty-five feet · and is ·some times three or fou1· feet in '-di·ameter at the tr .unk~ Then, it thrives _ with frequent pruning very much as does the privet and is in some places used for hedges. On the . other hand, laurel and rhododendron do not stand pruning and, as I have ·.said before, when broken down or the branches cut away does not 1--eadilyrecover, if at all.

We have another beautifu ·I flowering shrub, our pink azalea which, although a member of the rhododendron family (Rhododendron nudiflora) is not an evergreen, for which perhaps we may be thankful. · Everybody who drives along the secluded 1--oadsor goes into the woods in early June must know this beautiful flower which every spring '

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blossoms on almost every shaded hillside throughout New York and New England. This is the ''Pinkster bloem'' of our Dutch grandmothers, which they pronounced ''bloeme.'' Pinkster is the Dutch name for the Pentecostal week, whic.h the Germans call Pfingsten and is the English Whit. suntide. This shrub, like its cousins the other rhododendrons, suffers severely when pruned or broken down for its flowers.

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III Hepaticas, wind flowers, columbines, Sweet harbingers of spring, Growing by the roadsides Forgotten memories bring.

They are the flowers our grandmothers In the days so long ago.

Let us then love and cherish them As our grandmothers used to do!

loved

April is · here ,vith her warm, sunny days and her showers and the bright-faced little hepaticas, our earliest spring flowers, are here to welcome her. These very hardy little spring flowers, though not nearly so plentiful as they used to be, can still be found along almost every secluded roadside and in thin, rocky woods. I have planted them among the shrubbery in my garden where they thrive and seem to enjoy themselves blooming with the crocuses and snowdrops in late March or early April. It is one of the earliest spring :flowers and, though not an evergreen, after the flower is gone the leaves remain, gradually turning to a dark red color which makes it quite conspicuous during the whole season, even throughout the winter. These rather large, round, three-lobed leaves give it is name, liverwort, in Latin, Hepatica triloba. It is sometimes called the Easter flower, ''Paash bloeme'' by our Dutch grandmothers.

The hepatica that grows further south along the Blue Ridge and Alleghany mountains has three-lobed leaves which are quite similar, except I

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that the lobes are pointed and it is known as H epatica acuta-loba. Last year I planted a dozen , of these southern hepaticas in my garden. Some time after winter had set in I found that in cover-ing most of my pets I had fo1·gotten these little fellows, and the handiest thing I could find was a11 old piece of burlap, which I threw over them. This spring when I uncovered them, there they were, exactly as I had left them in the fall, their large, dark green, reddish leaves standing up strong after their long hibernation. They have not even forgotten their southern habit of early blooming, for before the end of March I noticed clusters of little fuzzy flower buds which rapidly shot up and burst into flowers, two or three weeks ahead of their northern cousins. The flowers are much lighter in color than our hepaticas, a bright pink which after about a week becomes a clear white, so that if you see a cluster of them in bloom yo11 . will see both pink and white flowers on the same plant. Both the leaves and the flowers have longe1· stems than our hepaticas. I have one little plant just now with seventeen blossoms, some of which ~' have been open fully two weeks and they still look fresh and bright.

I am glad to see that Governor Roosevelt recommended that the State Highway Department take steps to beautify our roadsides. Thus far everything that has been done has been the destruction of thousands of beautiful shade trees and the cutting away of many a shrub and flowe1·• covered bank, leaving only bare rocks or barren, unsightly wastes along the roadsides which could be, by systematic grading and planting of native , •

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trees and shrubs, a beautiful parkway. But there are still and always will remain with us our hundred s of miles of narrow, curving, hilly, shaded country drives where · nature has pla11ted her own little flower garde:p.s which, with the first warn1 days of April, begin to blossom with hepaticas, bloodroot, anemones, columbine, violets, dandelions and many other little wild flowers. We may find many a little rock garden along our Dutchess roads which nature has planted, as no skilled landscape gardener can plant, not only for a short season, but just as beautiful throughout the spring and summer and autumn.

Many of the owners of adjoining lands along our roads are, I am sure, aware of these beautiful spots and are proud of them and could be encouraged to cooperate with any movement to make and keep these roadsides beautiful. Our county agricultural society at its fair ever year offers prizes for the best pumpkins, cows, dogs, and almost every kind of produce. Why not offer prizes for the best improved roadsides along farms and hom.e sites? It might be difficult for a time if dogwood, laurel, viburnum, bittersweet, shadbush and wild flowers of the rarer sort were growing along the highways, to keep marauding parties of automobilists from plucking and destroying them, but I believe that in a short time there would be enough real lovers of these beautiful things who could create a sentiment that will protect them and make them as safe as they are in our gardens .

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I'm only a little wayside flower, A golden-petalled thing.

I come with the birds And April showers To add to the joy of spring.

I'm not going into the woods today. I want to just talk a little while in defense of some of the ,vild flowers that we have at our front doors, some of them so common that we sca1·cely notice them.

Take our little golden dandelion to begin with, one of the brightest and prettiest of our yello,v wild flowers. If it were as rare as some of the others we would surely go far to seek it. . ''Toothof-a-lion, '' I have often thought it should be named ''Heart-of-a-lion,'' for the constant and plucky battle it has to wage for existence.

It has shown that it is capable of taking care of itself. It is the cock sparro,v of the flower world.

Nature has provided it with an abundance of seeds and every seed is furnished with a little feathery balloon, by which it is carried over our lawns, into our gardens, lanes, and all along our roadsides by every wind that blows. It is always on hand the first thing in the spring to welcome with a bright smile the robins and the blue-birds when they come back to us. It has long been used as a medicine and is the ''Taraxacum oficinale'' of our pharmacopias. Its leaves are extensively used •

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as a food in the form of ''greens'' by a great many people, its roots to make a substitute for coffee, and its use for making wine is increasing every year. It is one of our native plants, or I may say it is a cosmopolitan as it is found practically all over the world.

One of the most common and most beautiful of the hardy wild flowers of our section is the purple loosestrife which begins in early August to glorif.,T the marshes. Purple loosestrife is comparatively a new comer. It first made it appearance in this locality in the 1860's along the Wallkill where it thrived and filled the marshes and swamps with beautiful flowers.

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There is a prevailing tradition that it was in some way brought home by the returning soldiers of the Civil War and the common name for it at the present time among the good people along th.e Wallkill is ''Rebel Weed''. I am i11clinedto believe that this is simply a coincidence. I can find no account of it growing anywhere south of Delaware. It is not a native, but one of the many wild flowers imported from Europe.

It gradually spread from marsh to marsh from the Wallkill to the Hudso11. ·Then, gaining a foothold in Dutchess, it appeared for several years in clusters here and there until at the present time it fills all 011r waste lowlands. I do not know anything that surpasses in beauty the view in late summer, north from the road at the foot of Brickyard Hill, of intermingling bright purple loosestrif e and goldenrod and here and there patches of brown cat-tails as far as one can see.

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Along the banks of the Jan Casper Kill, the lazy little stream which flows through the center of the scene, grow Fleur-de-Lis in abundance and occasionally a cluster of brilliant cardinal flowers.

I have found the cardinal here one year and have it disappear for several years and then appear again. The cardinal flower, ''1-'obelia cardinalis, '' the brightest red of any of our wild flowers, belongs to a family of blue flowers, the ''lobelias.'~ It is rather rare. Growing as it does along the muddy borders of streams, it depends entirely upon the waters to scatter its seeds, and consequently many of them fail to fall in a spot favorable to their growth. I believe also that like the seeds of many other plants they lie dormant for years, awaiting a favorable time.

The cardinal is a native American.

Apropos of the tradition that the purple loosestrife was brought home by returning soldiers, the much more likely story is told that our daisy was first seen in Georgia after Sherman's army had made its famous march through that state to the sea. This is probably true for the seeds were very likely to have been transported in the hay that every army carries along as fodder for its horses. It is the ''ox-eye'' daisy of England of which Chaucer sang five hundred years ago. It was brought to this country by the early colonists.

It is the most conspicuous of all our flowers during June and July, covering meadow, pasture and roadsides with its white and gold flowers.

It is a popular belief that many of our commonest wild flowers like the daisies and goldenâ&#x20AC;˘

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rods are frequently pests and usurpers, crowding out useful crops and gr .ass in the farmers' meadows and pastures. These are gross calumnies.

They are rare -ly seen in any great quantities in well cultivated fields or well seeded meadows.

Though they are very prolific they do not prosper in well sodded fields. A good strong growth of grass will choke them out but in impoverished fields where there is not a good supply of grass and where the ground is likely to be bare, every wind that blows over it brings a supply of seeds, daisies, goldenrods, St. John's wort, hawk-weed and many others. This is nature's method of covering up the bare earth and beautifying the barre11 spots.

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V ''So Manche schaft sich Sorg und Muehe, Such Dornen auf und findet sie Und laest das Veilchen unbemerkt, Das ihm am Wege blueht.''

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This little verse contains both poetry and the true philosophy of life. . How 1nany of us go through life seeking troubles and care, ''thorns'', and magnifying every little trouble until we can see and think of nothing else, instead of paying a little more attention to the little pleasures that are sure to be scattered along our path like the little violets along the roadside.

What more appropriate symbol could the poet have chosen than t.he violet, that modest little flower that grows along our paths in every out-ofthe-way place, hiding its bright little face in the grass around it or, if too early in the spring, under its own leaves or the dead leaves of the autumn be- · fore, which have sheltered it~ roots during the winter and helped to give it an early start in the spring? .; . .

I know a mountain road far up in the southern Catskills where I journey every May in ''apple blossom time.'' The season is later there than with us because it is at least 3,000 feet higher. At home the petals from the apple blossoms are falling, covering the ground with pink and white. Utl there the foliage has not yet started to come out on the trees, except perhaps to give the mountains •

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th.at purple sheen that comes from the first swell- " ing of the leaf buds on the birch and beech trees.

This is a road that is passable only on foot or with horses and buckboard. When nearing the summit we begin to find patches of violets. There are sometimes the little bright yellow violet, the little round-leaved white violet, or one or more of the little purple-blue violets that grow here, or they may be all growing practically together.

The white one is one of our very few fragrant violets.

A little further back in the mountains, usually growing in prof us ion along the base of rocky ledges is the larger yellow-eyed white Canada violet that is sometimes fragrant, but I have not found its fragrance so early in the season. I have found it blooming all summer in the mountains and at times it is decidedly fragrant.

011 two occasions ,vhen I have made this trip at the same time in spring I have been disappointed because when I got into the mountains my little violet friends were buried under an inch or two of snow. This does not seem to trouble them in the least. The snow seems to protect them from the cold, for when the snow melts they are smiling as brightly and enjoying the sunshine as though nothing had happened to them. : There are about forty-five varieties of violets in this vicinity of which more than half grow in Dutchess county. The most common is our pretty little dog's foot violet and the variegated violet that grows along many of our roadsides and along the borders of our woods. The large white violet grows especially along the mountains in eastern Dutches3 and the large yellow, hairy-stemmed â&#x20AC;˘

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wood-violet can be found in almost every shady woods. To anyone who loves flowers the violets are ·well worth knowing .

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1\1:ostof the violets are easily domesticated.

Everybody knows about pansies, which belong to the violet family. I would not care for a garden without the Johnny-jump-ups and in my garden · they are allowed all sorts of liberties and they seem to know it and they take every advantage.

They come up in the paths, in the grass, in the borders and everywhere. They do not like to be out-done by any of their taller con1panions in the garden. If left alone they will be satisfied with growing four or five inches high covering the ground with masses of bright little yellow or variegated pansy-like faces, but let them grow in a bed of cornflowers or coryopsis, or even in tall grass, and I have seen them stretch themselves up to a height of two or three feet not to be outdone by their neighbors .

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A little violet bowed its head, All laden with the dew, The bright Sun raised his shining face .Above the mountain blue, And said, ''My modest little flower, Why bow your head so low?'' ''Because,'' the little flower replied, ''Because I worship you.''

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''I thought I W<'uld do my work today But a brown bird sang in the apple tree And all the leaves were calling to m.e.

And the wind came blowing over the land Tossing the gras .ses to and fro . .

And a rainbow beckoned me with its hand So, what could I do but laugh and go?''

-Le Gallienne

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So, with a trio of congenial friends, Dr. Jim, Dr. Newt and the Judge, in Dr. Jim's reliable little car, we start for a day's outing and fishing .with rods and flies. Forgotten are the cares of our • . every-day life as we spin along the country roads toward the mountains that loom ahead of us in the distance. There is a· little talk about the merits of The Professor, Royal Coachman or The Silver Doctor, whether the season is enough advanced for a d1--yfly, and then we begin to approach the foothills of the mountains ahead of us. As we · hasten along the sun has become obscured. Thun- · der is rumbling and threatening and black clouds appear just above the hills. The1·e is a shower up there in the mountains. But as we approach the clouds begin to break away, blue sky appears in the west and, look, see that beautiful rainbow just ahead of us! It is between us and that hill. Now, as we a.pproach, it is almost over us. As we drive · along up through the hills there is _the end of our rainbow, just at our right, painting the rocks, the trees and the grass on that hillside. What a disl

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play of colors! It would take a better artist than I to describe it. I have never seen anything in art that would begin to compare with that display of the blended colors of the solar spectrum painted upon that rocky hillside, and just there within a stone's throw of us. Dr. Jim wanted to stop and look for a pot of gold, for, said he, ''We'll never have another such an opportunity.''

But the Judge, who was already getting his reel and flies ready in anticipation, for we were nearing our stream, objected. ''Who cares for a pot of gold . just now?'' And then we passed under the bow . and it disappeared.

Soon afterward we crossed the old covered bridge over our little river into the hinter land of the rainbow. From here our trail ·runs along the right bank of the stream for seven or eight miles.

Sometimes the turbulent little river is perilously near us and then either our trail or the river will make a detour of half a mile and we are separated by a wild mountain valley meadow or a dense tangle of woods. This was late in May and these · meadows are literally covered with bluets, violets and spring beauties, anemones and many othe1· little wild flowers. The woods which are only just beginning to show signs of foliage are dotted here and there with the white blossoms of shadblow in full bloom and on either side when our road runs through the woods are everywhere nodding wake robins (the dark red trilliums) and the painted trilliums and a myriad of other spring flowers.

Here is the little lodge of the Fontanalis Club, a septagonal building where each one of the seven little rooms is built around a central ·club room.

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This has given it the name ''Snorers' Club'' because e;;tch member's room has an open air space between it and its neighbor so that he may snore as much as he pleases. Then we pass the little schoolhouse which for the past two or three decades has hardly been needed, as this beautiful valley has become practically depopulated, for the half-dozen farms in the valley have either been purchased by the fishing clubs or added to the mountain park by the state. Here is our fishing ground. The car is parked and with fly rods and waders we scatter along the swift little river for the most fascinating of all sports, matching wits and skill with the beautiful speckled trout. I'm usually a fair fisherman but today there are too many distractions.

Here where the stream flows along an old deserted meadow, covered with a carpet of bright little bluets (''Quaker ladies'') and many kinds of violets, blue and white and yellow. Then all around a marsh where a little mountain brook joins th .e river are masses of golden cowslips or marsh marigolds, shiny bright yellow flowers and shiny ¡ green foliage. All along the bank of the stream grow great clusters of wood betony, two distinct colors, dark red and yellow. , This plant is said to have been very highly prized ~Y the old Roman physicians. I don't like its common name, ''lousewort'', from its Latin name ''Pedicularis canadensis.''

Then there appears along a shady bank ¡ the tall, branching, l1airy-stemmed wood violet. Here are great quantities of bright-faced spring beauties on their slender little stems, Dutchman's breeches and that other, very much rarer, little dicentra, the squirrel â&#x20AC;˘

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corn with its dangling white flowers and pretty green foliage growing along the river bank. Picking my way through a low, ·boggy wood in the midst of a tangle of wild grape vin ·es I came upon a group of large showy orchid ( Orchis spectabilis). How gorgeous they must have been a week ago! . They have passed their heydey and are still . beautiful. These are some of the things that disturbed my fishing. Finally we got the party to-• gether again and started for our lodge about a mile up the mountain. , .

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We had just reached ~he shelter of the lodge when the mountains were deluged by a real mountain shower with plenty of thunder and lightning accompaniment.

We were contented then to eat our supper and sit around the blazing log fire· smoking ou~ ·pipes and recounting in true fisherman style the experiences of the day. It is a wonderful night in the mountains, just a vast silence.

There might be the Hoo, Hoo, Hoo, Hoo of an owl or the sharp, short bark of a fox but all else is just stillness. .But what a place for sleeping! C1--isp, cold, fresh mountain air. In the morning out on the mountainside here and there a mountain ash is just beginning to put out its · foliage . . Everywhe .re the low-growing hobble bush~ or wayfarer's bush, ( our Virburnum Lantanoides), growing three or four feet high, with its platter-shaped clusters of rather attractive white flowers, w:hile on the ground the trilli urns are everywhere. Shadblow, long since ·gone in our woods at home, is in full bloom, a splotch of white here and there ··on both the grey mountainside and the valley. :· ·. .

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Up the side of the mountain about a quarter mile from the lodge, gushing from the rocks, flo,vs an eternal spring, the waters from which, flowing do,vn the mountainside, over the moss-covered rocks and down through little ravines, furnishes a perpetual moisture for all sorts of green things that grow here all through the season. Just now we have the pretty foam flower, the large Canada violets and many others followed in riotous succession by still others in their season. The luxt1riant growth of the mosses here is to me beyond description.

I am giving an account of only a few of the flowers blooming here in May. There are many others with some of which I have no acquaintance, one a beautiful little white, five-petaled flower which in many places covered the ground with a carpet of green and white. Then there is a bright yellow, hairy-stemmed flower with many little golden petals that grows in the water along the edge of the streams and for which I have as yet · found no name.

There is no season of the year when I love the woods so much as in May, when at these altitudes which range from two to three thousand feet, the woods are a sombre grey with here -and there . a patch of white or green where some flower or shrub, like the Mayflower, Virburnu~, or mountain ash, . more enterprising ;than. th •eir. companions, have t~ken an early start a_nd ..are , proclaJmi:ng to their friends, ''Wake up, Spring has come.'' . '.

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VII Let us wander over the rocky cliffs On a sunny day in June, When col-umbines and laurel And the sweet azaleas bloom .

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Some years ago along one of the shady roads only a few miles from the city, under a grassy bank I found a cluster of fringed Polygala, one of 011rrarest and most r~tiring wild flowers. A few days later in the home o_f one of my friends I was shown this same . bunch of delicate little flowers, drooping and withered, their little heads hanging o,Ter the side of a vase. Next year there were fewer of them and now they have disappeared entirely. I kno,v of only two or . three other places in Dutchess County where they may be found.

I was · once invited to spend a ,veek-end with our old friend Bill Caldwell at tl1e old home on Stormville Mountain. ''Bring you1· rod along and you may catch some nice trout in my lake.'' Very soon after my arrival, late one afternoon, I hastened out to Bill's ''lake,'' a little pond which he had made by damming a little mountain stream at the edge of a marsh. The trout were there and I had some for my supper, but what interested me fully as much as the trout were the clusters of stately calopogons growing along the borders of the marsh, waving back and forth on their slender, grassy stems, and scattered among them their pretty little satellite, the pogonia or Adder's •

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Mouth, as they are called. I had not seen these beautiful little orchids for years. When I went in with my trout, but more enthusiastic about the orchids, I found that Bill was waiting for me curious to know if I had noticed them, and fearful that I might come in with his pets. It was a test he had put me to. I came back to the city and told my friend, Clarence Lown, of my find and he was also enthusiastic and I took him out to see then1 the next day. This was July 10, and I remember Mr. Lown saying that besides the calopogons and pogonias, which were almost always found growing together, that one month earlier one was almost sure to find the Arethusa, another beautiful little, purple orchid, growing in the same spot.

So, on June 10, the next year, we went to seek the Arethusas. There they were. Mr. Caldwell tried to guard these beautiful nymphs of the flower world, bt1t, in vain. I have been there several times since Bill's death but have found no trace of them for several years. They used to be quite common in New England cranberry marshes but, alas, they have been loved ''not wisely, but too well.'' At the present time I would not know where to find a single one.

Many years ago, while a student at Heidelberg, I spent a two-weeks' June vacation wandering through the Hartz Mountains and the great Black Forest. In practically every town there existed societies devoted to the preservation of the flowers and shrubs. Every now and then I met, even in the wildest places, the green-coated forest warden with his shiny gun strapped over his shoulder. He was always friendly. These forests are ages older 29

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than any of ours and still abound in wild flowers.

I well remember one beautiful June day, wandering ·up through a deep ravine with the noisy little river Thale on one side and a high wall of rocks on the other, when all at once the air was filled with marvellous perfume. There were violets of all kinds everywhere under my feet, but it could hardly be from them. Then I discovered far up above my head great trusses of dark red carnations, growing in the crevasses in the rocky wall and hanging down over the rocks. There were thottsands of them, and the most frangrant flowers I have ever found anywhere. I wonder how long they would last in our woods? I am sure, ho"rever, that any Whitsunday they may be found on those same rocks in the Hartz.

Only a few ·weeks ago I was trampling along one of in a neighboring coun. my favorite streams . ty, clambering through tangles of rhododendron and laurel, when I discovered deep down in the clear pool at the foot of a big rock the king of all the trout · in the stream. I've got him as good as ~ati~ht on my first trip next spring. I 1:cnowjust which fly is going to tempt him from his lair.

I've got just th ·e spot picked out where I'm going to stand when I cast for him. But I can't help wondering if I'll find the same rhododendron bushes casting just the right shadow over his pool. I can only hope that it is too remote just for the present to have been discovered .by the gatherers of holiday decorations and that my friend, l\ir.

Tay]or, who owns and is proud of this beautiful spot, has been on guard. .

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''With

the Sun painting

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Oh! who could be dull On a bright summer's day, When the woods are cool and green, With a warbler's song And a squirrel's bark, Or the whirr of a pheasant's wing?

Our path is a carpet of mosses and ferns With the sun painting pictures Of sunlight and shade, As its rays creep down through the leafy screen That covers the shade-loving things in the glade.

Here are some of our interesting friends that may be found any of these pleasant summer days along the roadsides or in fields or marsh or wood.

We hardly leave the city streets before ,ve find along the wayside many flowers, purple, blue) gold and white. Bright blue chicory, called a · roadside weed. Has anyone ever seen a brighter, more cheerful blue? How it trieB during a long period in summer to brighten up our dusty roadsides. It has been described by Pliny, nearly two thousand years ago, has been known throughout most of the world, used as a food and a medicine by the Romans and still cultivated as a salad and as a substitute , for coffee in France and England.

Somewhere I have heard it called the ''dust flower'' and I love that name for it.

There is a glorious clump of goldenrod glistening like a great ball of pure sunshine. There are man~~varieties of goldenrod but just now the flat•

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topped is most in evidence, growing in thick clusters three or four feet high.

Now we cross a small bridge where a brook crosses our road to flow into a marsh which is co,Tered with the tall spikes of bright purple loosestrife which begins to bloom in midsummer and continues till late fall. Here also are masses of New England asters, dark purple with bright yellow centers. There are several others of the asters which will be much more prominent later in the season. · Then our road runs along a low, boggy pasture wit.h the little creek just over an old fence. Here, where the brook runs through a low, marshy place, is a veritable bower, great spires of loosestrife four or five feet high, with goldenrod along the bank, while down in the water of brook and marsh is a beautiful yellow-centered, clear white flower growing up along a spike f ron1 one to two feet high, with long-stemmed, broad, green spear or arrow-shaped leaves. The broad-leaved arrowhead, or arrow lily (Sagittaria · latifolia) one of our most attractive water plants, not so very common, is growing here in abundance. As I clambered down through the old barbed-wire fence to get nearer, there, completely hidden by the loosestrif e, was a group of cardinals, brightest scarlet of all our wild flowers. Across the brook scattered over the whole bog were clusters of another large purple flower, darker purple tha11 the loosestrife but scarcely less showy, iron weed (Vernonia · Noveboracensis).

Here I also found the great lobelia (Lobelia syphilitica) just one small plant

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but with the bright blue flower head that was unmistakable.

Next we came to the lake we were seeking, and what a sight! At one end of the lake where the water was shallow were groups of pickerel weed, spikes of bright blue or lavender flowers, one to three feet tall, with large lance-shaped leaves.

This is one of our most beautiful water plants.

But why called by such a homely name? Its botanical name, Pontederia cordata, is rather unwieldy but far preferable to such a stately, dignified looking flower. Banked all around this shallow end of the lake are masses of both broad and narrow-leaved flags growing at least six feet high, crested with their cat-tail wands. A little further out the lake is literally covered with the large white water lilies with their exquisite white flowers and round green leaves lying flat on the water, ' and yellow pond lilies intermingling in the friendliest and most harmonious manner.

They are properly called nymphaeas. · A little distance away was a smaller pond covered with lilies and surrounded by a boggy marsh filled with ~oe Pye weed, or purple boneset (Eupaa tall, stately plant branchtorium purpureum), ing at the top into numerous clusters of royal pu1·ple flowers. It has a right to be stately for it is named for a powerful king of ancient times, Mithridates Eupator, and for Joe Pye, a New England Indian chief who was said to have cured typhus fever with a decoction made from its leaves and flowers.

Growing here also was ~the white-flowered thoroughwort, the boneset of our grandmothers •

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and very few of our fathers and mothers, if they happened to be country children, escaped the grandmother's dose of ''boneset tea'' as a cure for colds and fever. Here were also growing the pink spires of hardback or steeple bush (Spiraea tomentosa) and the shrubby cinquefoil with its bright little yellow flowers.

Now for a tramp through a dense, wooded swamp and we are ready for home. This swamp is usually inaccessible but now, owing to the dry season, we are able to penetrate with comparative ease. "Vhat a luxurious growth of ferns! Immense clumps of royal ferns, four or five feet high.

Growing here among the ferns were some beautiful specimens of monkey flowers (Mimulus ringens). It was while trying to recognize the monkey-like shape of this very charming little purple flower that I discovered the prize of the day, a beautiful specimen of the purple fringed orchid. 'fhere it stood, growing out of the side of a mound formed by the decay·ed ·remains of a tree trunk that had fallen many years ago. It was fully three feet tall with a flower head seven or eight inches long. Unfortunately it ·was very much faded but we could see what a beauty it had been in late June or early July. Another one, nearby·, was still more faded and the flower stalk was nearly bare. I shall know where to go next year and I hope to find this flower, called by Thoreau the ''belle of the swamp'', waiting for me arrayed in her best party attire.

Out a little farther, among the hills, we found another little pond with a setting of ferns, marsh grasses and bogs. There must surely be some(Eupatorium

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thing worth looking for here ! We had not yet reached the pond when we found scattered, all around among the bogs, colonies of creamy white flowers about an inch in diameter on their slender erect stems which spring out of a cluster of shiny, oval, green leaves. Grass of Parnassus (Parnassia Ca1·oliniana), it has not the slightest resemblance to any of our grasses. Why then its name'?

I like to picture it growing on the slopes of ancient Parnassus, the haunts of Apollo and Pan ancl could scarcely help listening for the music of the lyre or pipes of one or the other of these rival musicians of that beautiful mythological age of ancient Greece.

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IX

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Down in Uncle Abner's pasture Where the golden cowslips grew, With violets and bright spring beauties, Mingled white and gold and blue, There the lark and red-winged blackbird Sang their joyous songs of spring, Urging peace and joy and happiness To every living thing.

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Much is being done throughout the country on reservations for the preservation of parks and historical sites, but why cannot something be done to prevent the spoliationof ourbeautifulcountry, of which no section is more beau ·tiful than our own old Dutchess, or has finer possibilities in its flora, with its many miles of rural drives and its acres of wooded hillsides? There are many places where I love to pass hours among the ·wild things that grow there naturally and profusely if they could be treated properly for a few years. There is one beautiful spot in the north-east part of our county that I have visited many times every year, beginning in the spring as soon as the roads will permit. This is the season when the many-hued hepatica ( the ''Paasch-bloem'' of our Dutch grandmothers, which they pronounced ''Paasch-bloeme'' )·, blood-root and, I must say it almost in a whisper, little patches, here and there, of trailing arbutus and bright anemone are the first to greet me. There are ·great patches here ·where the ground is covered with the dark green carpet •

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ofwintergreen and partridgeberryvineswith their pretty little flowers. Other places, more or less secluded, grow trailing over the ground, ground pine and Prince's pine, or pipsissewa, whose blossom is a close rival of the trailing arbutus in beauty and fragrance.

They, too, are evergreen and very likel.y to disappear in a very few years as they are at present all too popular as holiday wreaths and other decorations, and are very rapidly disappearing from our woods.

Here also among the pines and white birches growing up between the rocks or out of a bed of dark green leafy moss, at first two dark green broad leaves which gradually grow to a. height of six or eight inches, then on a slender stalk which comes up between them until it towers just above them, one of the rarest and most beautiful flowers of a11·, our pink lady slipper, or moccasin flower. There are also growing here, but not in profusion, the pinkster azalea and mountain laurel but these have been altogether too conspicuous and are almost exterminated .

Here in early June flowering dogwood predominates everything else.

I once discovered beside a little stream that flows out of a marsh at the edge of the woods, a beautiful little black-eyed violet . . It was new to me and I could find no description of it. I took up a small bunch of it and . planted it under a rambler rose in my garden. It thrived and blossomed next year, as it has every year since, but it has lost its little black face and is just a blue violet. · It had taken its dark color either from the soil in which it grew or from the shade -of the alders. Just a scheme of nature. I 38 •

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bave caught trout from a mucky-bottomed pond that were almost black. I do not even know who is the owner of these woods but I wish ·to acknowledge a very great obligation to hin1 for the many pleasant hours spent at ''Idle Hour'', which I have named this spot. ~ hope it may be left just as it is for many years longer.

A friend of mine who is building and improving a new section of our city near my home has a beautiful. grove which he told me QI1eday he was going to leave unmolested. · When I remarked ''What a beautiful spot to fill with dogwood, laurel, trilliums, Ja ·cks-in-the-pulpit and all sorts of wild flowers,'' he simply looked at me and asked, ''How long do you think they would remain there?''

Mr. Smiley at Lake Mohonk once told me of one of his experiences. One afternoon one of his lady patrons after a stroll along one of the moun~ tain paths through the Shawarigunks, came into his office in great enthusiasm with a rare shrub in her hand. ''Oh, Mr. Smiley, I had no idea you had this shrub in your mountains.'' Mr. Smiley loo~ed at it and smiling, answered: ''We haven't any now. · We have been about five years trying to ~ake that one grow.'' This lady was a flower lover but she liked her flowers dead.

I have just received a letter fro~ Mr. W. S. Teator of Red Hook, which I am going to append to this effort of mine and at the same time I want to thank him for it. I believe there are m·any people who would join us in an effort to protect these beautiful flowers and shrubs that ~our children and grandchildren may have some of them left to know and to enjoy as we have enjoyed knowing them.

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Dr. J. · Wilson Poucher, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. ,

Jany. 6th, 1929 .

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Dear Dr. Poucher: •

Though I have not had the good pleasure of meeting you I cannot refrain from writing to let you know how much your wonderful wild flower articles in the Eagle-News are appreciated by me. '

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It is good to know that they have such a champion as you fighting in their interests.

I have delightful memories of many happy hours spent searching out floral treasures hidden in the wilds, to many of which I make yearly visits. From prolific localities I have often made successful removals of individual plants to new places with similar environments and I have little colonies here and there in near-by places that always allure me. The · rarer wild flowers have a difficult struggle without man's ruthless interference and it is good to know that you are starting a campaign for their preservation.

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There is an exquisite series of postal cards of our native wild flowers published, I think, in Chicago. I do not know if you have them?

They are worth while. They n1ay be .had from Miss C. A. Mitchell, 144 Fairbank Road, Ri , 1 erside, Ill. Yours very truly, •

W. S. TEATOR.

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X You may hide, little songster But I know you are there, For I heard your song ringing So glad and so clear, And my little spring beauties, I've found where you grow, For a little brown thrasher Has just told m.e so .

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.There is a saying that there is a black sheep in every family and this is just as true in the plant family as it is in the human family.

Among our wild flowers many of the most · beautiful specimens live almost in disgrace on account of the ''black sheep'' of its family. Away back in the mountains in late May and June growing over every grassy mound and ledge, of ten fairly carpeting the woods with its dainty white, pink-veined flowers and clover-like foliage, may be found the little mountain sorrel, the Hallelujah flower of the old English poets . .Here, although more fond of the shady woods and mountain slopes and valleys, is the yellow wood sorrel, a very shy, retiring little fellow, which may be found blooming all summer, while its violet cousin may be found in the more open places, often on bare rocky cliffs and sunny banks.

They really seem to be hiding away from the ''disgrace of the family''. For where is there a more persistent and troublesome pest than the common sheep sorrel that tries its level best to I

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take possession of our gardens in late summer and ~ spread over grain fields and pastures until in autumn the whole landscape may be reddened by its . short flower and seed stalks?

One of our most beautiful and elusive earlyspring flowers growing along the borders of the woods in moist, open, sunny places deep in the . woods or along the banks of shady streams is our · spring beauty, white with pink veins or light pink . with darker pink veins. It grows on a little slen-der stem, four or five inches long, usually partly · hidden in the grass or leaves. I have found it in . only two or three places in Dutchess. It should be· a favorite in parks as it does well in moist, partly · shaded places.

It is a member of the purslane family and a. close relation to the ''pusley'' that will run over · · our gardens and garden walks almost in spite of· our diligence and industry. ''As mean as pusley'' . has long been a favorite saying that has come, down from our grandmothers.

What more troublesome pest can be found all . through the early summer in our gardens, espec-~ ially in a moist season, than the common chick-weed? It springs up everywhere in our gardens . almost over night and can only be kept subdued by · eternal vigilance. We should have patience with . it on only one account. Its seeds are a favorite = food for many of our little song birds.

But our meadow or field chickweed goes very · far to make up for its troublesome relative. It grows in thick spreading masses of light green~ which from May to July are covered with a mantle of starry white flowers nearly an inch in diameter ..

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It is very useful as a covering for rock piles, stumps, or any wall or unsightly spot in garden or lawn and I have often wondered why it is not more often used by gardeners. In my garden it has attracted more attention and more inquiries than anything else for the past two or three years.

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I wish I could write with words of flame As bright as the scenes I saw today, Painted o'er woods and fields and hills.

On the shrubs and trees along my way.

Let's go out for a day's tramp through centr ,al Dutchess in mid-October.

We take any road out among the hills where everywhere every tree and shrub makes a beautiful picture. There is every shade of color, maples shading from light yellow , to brightest red, the oaks from dark green to rich bronze, the flaming red of the su1nacs. And here is a wood that in late May and early June was a mar,,.ellous show of blooming dogwood, but scarcely less marvellous now when the leaves are a mass of mingled colors from yellow to dark maroon red.

Even the poison ivy climbing over great tree trunks and old stone walls is a wonderful blending of red and green and gold and is putting up its only argument for being allowed to grow.

Ho,v wonderful is the scheme of nature, every spring covering every tree and shrub and plant with bright green leaves, then flowers and fruit, and then in autumn the flowers have gone, the fruit has ripened and the leaves also ripen and die. But dying with them is a beautiful process.

As the sap supply which has kep ·t them green all summer becomes less and less the green color turns into many hues until they fall to the ground and return to dust giving their substance to help 44 I

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bring about another crop next yea1·. As a boy, I remember being taught by teachers, fiction books and even nature stories, that these phenomena, the coloring of the ripening leaves, the opening of the chestnut burs, the falling of the nuts in the fall, were due to early frosts. Early f1·ost may hasten the ripening of the leaves and the opening of the chestnut burs, but it is not necessary. It will do much more to lessen, if not spoil entirely, the beat1tif ul panorama of color in our woods. A severe frost when the leaves are still green will turn them gray and brown and they will very soon curl up and fall, especially if it is followed by rain.

Here is one of my favorite streams and I park my car and follow it ·through a boggy field through alders ancl a mass of loosestrif e and Joe Pye weed whose flowers are gone. The parnassia are almost finished but here is a cardinal flower not yet gone, and there across the stream is a blue lobelia with a few flowers still, and as I pass along down the stream looking for a place to get across, there growi11g among the ferns is a cluster of fringed gentians, not more than half a dozen, but wide open and, I believe, the brightest, darkest, clearest blue of any I have ever seen. This is the most beautiful and most prized of all our fall wild flo\'\ ers. Beginning in September, if undisturbed, it will sometimes last until November. But it is becoming rare. I can remember when I used to find it along the little brook that crosses College Avenue in our city and then along the stream that runs into Vassar Lake, and in many places within a mile or two, but it has gradually disappeared from all these old haunts. It is a biennial, which 1

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means that it comes the second season after its seeds are sown. There may be a few flowers this season and none next and then, again, the next year it may come back. Like the trailing arbutus and some of our other wild flowers its beauty has been its downfall. Flower gatherers take all the flowers and there are none left for seed. I shall hope to find some growing in this spot next year.

There is said to be a certain charm in uncertainty and if that is t1--ue,then I know of no occupation that has more charm than seeking fringed gentians.

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There is another flower in this family that has al,va~rs inte1--ested me,-the intensely blue, closed or blind gentian. Blooming in August, it lasts until late into October. ~f anything, it is even more retiring and modest in its habits than its relative the fringed gentian, for it is most often hidden in the deep recesses of moist, shaded woods or along the flowery banks of some lowland pool or stream where it seems to be trying with its poor blind eyes to see its own reflection in the water below. But why should it be blind? Doubt- . less it was once a happy naiad or wood nymph, roaming happily through the Parnassian or Arcadian woods, who through some i1npulse of fickle Eros or a jealous goddess has been turned into this bright blue flower and .doomed to wander through all the ages seeking wit~ blinded eyes her own reflection in every stream and pool, but never to find · it. Was not the nymph, Arethusa, pursued by the enamored water god, turned into the beautiful flowe1· that bears her name?

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There is also the story of the youth Narcissus, beautiful and vain, who had become· so enamored of his own reflection in the spring that he was utterly indifferent to the love of the nymph Echo, who wandered, weeping and inconsolable, through the woods and hills until she died of grief and was turned into stone. Only her voice remained which any of us can hear any time we seek it. N arcissu8 was finally turned by Nemesis into the flower which we call by his name.

Th.e bright little spring wind flower, Anemone, is said to have been created by Aphrodite from the blood of the dying Adonis.

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Not all the boasted skill of man , Has ever caused a single flower to grow, Or ever made a living germ; One Source of life is all we know.

One hand, one mind, cr_eated every living thing And planned the perfect universe; He gave the sun for warmth and light To make an Eden of our earth.

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Most of the schemes of economy which men · have adopted, insurance, saving against a time of need, protecting their young by hard work during their lives to give their offspring a better start in the world, all of these and many more can be said to have been borrowed from the plants.

All these principles of thoughtfulness and prudence have been higbly developed in plants long before the creation of man. There is not one single flowering seed or bulbous plant that does not leave a rich legacy in its seed or bulb to its descendant. No sooner has one flower plant furnished its blooms and its fruit has ripened and fall en than it begins to store up material for a new crop for the next year and long before the leaves have fall en from tree or shrub the material and plans for a successive crop are under way, some of them even already in well developed flower buds before the winter sets in.

Notice, for example, a group of healthy rhododendrons which are laden with la1·ge well developed ''buds'' all through the winte1·. Each one of 48

these large ''buds'' contains not simply a · single flower germ but is a strong protecting shield within which a whole cluster of little buds are undergoing development. This process of development will not be completed until early in July when the enveloping shield has burst and disappeared and, in its place, has appeared the cluster of real flower buds which, when they open, give us a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

Rhododendrons are not the only plants or shrubs that begin early in the season to prepare for next year's blooms. All the plants are doing the same thing but in their own peculiar way. Go out in the garden and examine the lilacs and see practically the same provision being made there.

In the woods the . dogwoods and many others can be observed any day from early fall with buds that look as though they were only waiting for a few warm days. In some of our plants, such as· lilies, our native orchids, hyacinths, tulips, crocuses and many others, all this banking of resources is being done undergrcund. As soon as the flowering season is past the roots or bµlbs which have given up all their energy and most of the substance to produce their flower or fruit crop, begin to lay in a new store of starch, fat and other carbon material · for a new bulb or, sometimes, two or three new bulbs, or, like most of our perennials, develop stronger roots so that by late fall they are ready with strong, healthy crowns to avail themselves of the first appearance of the spring sunshine.

Late this fall, while getting a supply of swamp soil for my garden, I dug into a mass of strong, fleshy roots with large, healthy-looking, pointed •

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flower buds just ready to burst from the ground.

After studying them for a· while I decided they were skunk cabbage, our earliest marsh plant to blossom, and here it was in October all ready for an early start in the spring. I carried several of them home with me and planted them under some shrubbery in their own rich swamp mold with some swamp ferns and some sphagnum moss, so they would not be lonesome. They seem to be happy for nearl~? a month later I found that they had shot up about an inch above the surf ace of the ground. I did not like to leave thern thus exposed through a long, cold winter so ~ covered them with leaf mold. Perhaps they did not understand their new surroundings and mistook the warm, Indian summer weather for spring. I shall certainly look for them as soon as the frost is out and the March sun begins to warm the grou11d. This is one of the Arums. The spathe, or spike, that is all ready in the fall shoots up only a few inches out of the ground and then only partly opens so that the little flower which grows on a short, fleshy spike within, is protected. Unfortunately its disagreeable odor has given it its name, skunk cabbage. but like its animal namesake, it only gives out this odor when disturbed. _ Later on in the spring, after the flower is past, the plant is conspicuous by . its cluster of large green leaves.

Another of the arums, ''Jack-in-the-pulpit'', which starts early to prepare for its next year's flower and fruit long before its cluster of bright red berries have ripened, the firm little, turnip-like -bulb is all ready to send up in early spring its green and purple spathe or hood surrounding and ~

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protecting the little flower spike in its centre. I wonder how many of my readers have ever tried to taste this little bulb, which is sometimes called Indian turnip? If they have they will not wonder why it is called Memory Root in many localities.

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· In our annuals and many other plants and trees that propagate from seed, the parent plant has n1ade use of that · same principle of domestic economy by supplying to each seed, nut or bulb, besides the seed germ, enough nutriment in the form of starch, fat and other materials, to support the young plant until it has grown roots and tendrils and leaves by which it can forage for itself alone by gathering necessary gases from the atmosphere and mineral food from the earth in the form of lime and other salts. This we must remember when we cut the flowers from our tulips, gladioli, peonies and other bulbous plants, that it is better to leave a good portion of the stalk so that they may have a little capital left to furnish nutriment that will give their next offspring a good start in the world .

We must remember that in order to produce in a comparatively short time a fine healthy plant and its gorgeous blooms, the bulb we planted has expended a vast amount of energy and most of its material substance. In the domestic economy of these plants it is their scheme that when the bloom is done and the fruit or seed has ripened, that the process of laying up food-stuffs in the form of new bulbs around the inf ant germ of the next generation shall begin at once. The dying of the old plant when it has done its life work is nothing I

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more or less than the using up of its juices and other substances for this purpos~.

These habits and procedures in the economy of plant life were established ages before _man adopted many of them for his playthings and most of ¡ them respond when we understand them and their habits of life and treat them ¡well and fully repay us for any trouble we take with them.

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There is no mystery in life and death, 'Tis the same since the world began .

The old must pass that the young may live, Be it . animal, plant or man.

It may be a day or a hundred yea1·s But the cycle of life runs true.

There is no end to the wheel of life As it turns for me-.and for you.

• So, let us ~njoy what life brings to us While the earth and its fruits are ours, And adq. our mite to the joy of the w.orld With the birds and the trees and the flowers .

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I know of nothing mo~e interesting . in the . whole scope. of buma,n .Jcnowlepge than the study , ; of the mystery .of the lives of our flowers, their .

•. .. . scheme for growth, f er.tilization and reproduction~ .. : : .

The growth of every plant begins .from . the little ·- :· germ that is bound up in .ev~ry fertile see~ and ,··bulb. ~As soon as the seed ' ,Or_bulb . is planted .in ~ the moist, ,.. warm ..earth it wjll ,,begin ,to. swell a~d :. the germ sends out. little .spr.outs. ,'; These spr .outs . . . ... ·, are of two kinds. , .Tihe plµrnule .whic~ by, instinc~ grows ·upward out . of the ,igrqund beco~es th~ infant plant. The other, known as the .radicle, grows . ..·. downward and becomes .the .-root . . Until the little • . . plant has grown , up into th~ .w~rl~ ..~nd ~as foi:me4 •: Ieaves .'and .the root has become large enough to . get . ' . ,.. a root ~hold .in the .earth, it must . subsist upon -the . nutrition material laid up in the seed or bulb .by . the mother _plant ·the . year .be{ore. . After this .is ,., ~ exhausted the little plant must forage for itself . .....

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The roots absorb water from the earth and with it various mineral salts which it needs. The leaves get carbon and oxygen from the carbonic acid gas in the air by breaking up this gas which is composed of oxygen and carbon, and appropriating them to its use.

Then the plant has started.

Cells multiply rapidly, fed by carbon and oxygen from the air, indefinable rays from the sun and water and mineral salts from the earth. Every plant becomes a miniature chemical laboratory. The water taken up by the roots becomes the sap which carries nutrition to every minute cell. Thus we can see that every healthy plant eats and drinks and breathes .

It is a known fact t}:lat plants could not live at all were it not for the millions of tons of carbonic acid gas that is exhaled daily by man and the animals, and were it not for this supply of carbonic acid gas there could be no vegetation. And without vegetation to use up this poisonous gas man and animals could not exist.

We now have a living, growing organism which we call a plant, selecting from the air and earth what it may require. These requirements vary widely in different plants, sorne of our flowers thrive happily where others refuse to grow at . all. Some of these plants, like our annuals, only last a season, while others, such as our shrubs and great trees may be longer-lived than ourselves.

The plant matures, forms its flowers, but in order that it may produce it must be fertilized by the pollen from another flower of the same species.

Botanists have classified and described every flower and given fitting names to all its different parts 54 •

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and organs. Some flowers have many more than others but only two of these organs are directly concerned in the process of pollination,-pistil and stamens. Each plant must be furnished with at least one pistil. The stamens are ususally four to ten, though sometimes many more. The pollen forms around the ends of the stamens and must be carried and deposited upon the pistil of another flower for a perfect cross fertilization of its little nest of eggs or ovules. After this has been accomplished the fruit and seeds ripen, the flower fades and the work of preparing for the next family begins. But how and why is this process of pollination of the pistil of one flower by the pollen from the stamen of another flower either from the same plant or from the flow·er of another plant accomplished? The common agents for distributing the light, fluffy pollen are bees, butterflies and other insects, or in many instances, the wind. Our most highly organized flowers pref er to be visited by honey bees, butterflies and even·humming birds and they have invented many deep-laid plans to attract these visitors. They dress themselves up in gorgeous array of colors. They secrete sweettasting nectars. They exhale pleasant-smelling perfumes and make use of many other devices, and especially just at the time when the pollen is ready for distribution and when the pistils and ovules are ready to receive it. Some of the flowers are so . arranged that Mr. Bee, when he goes after the honey, must crowd himself in between the stamens to get it, so that when he comes out his hairy little body is covered with the little pollen. Then away he flies to another flower which is ready to receive '

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him with an arrangement to brush off this pollen just where -it will be deposited in the proper place and held there by a sticky secretion which is there for that very purpose. I have seen honey bees at work when they looked like little yellow balls from the golden pollen grains clinging to them. I used to think that this load of pollen was his collection of honey but I have since learned that this is not the way he carried his honey.

It is the higher order of flowers that are fertilized ·in this manner. They very much prefer it.

They have no difficulty in obtaining this service from the busy little visitors though unwitting on · their part it may be, for they are usually well re~. paid by ia bountiful supply of honey. But among the flowers, as •among men and animals,- there are some individuals who are rank frauds, who make · a gaudy show with every appearance of a rich supply of honey where no honey exists. But the same result is obtained for the disappointed visitor departs for the next flower with his supply of pollen, · if not with his reward of honey.

With our flowers as· with eve1·y other living thing there exists the steadfast pu1·pose of repro d uction. So strong is this instinct in some of our flowers ·that we take advantage of it by cutting the flowers -as fast as they blossom, knowing that ou1· plant will produce flower after flower in renewed effort to raise a crop of seeds for posterity. With this same object in view a pair of robins build . · · their nest in the spring time, the little blue eggs are laid, carefully incubated, the young brood is .. successfully hatched ana raised and they are satisfied. But let their efforts be frustrated, the nest •

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and the eggs be destroyed, and they almost immediately build a new nest and begin all over again.

Some of the lower order of plants whose· flow·ers are very much more simple, just little more than pistil and stamens, without the many attractions of their more affluent and, I might almost ~ay, more intelligent neighbors, must do their own fertilization.

These are many of our common ·weeds, the ''poor trash'' of the plant world. Many of the most highly organized of our flowers take decided steps to prevent self-fertilization and one -0f these is to have the pistil and stamens mature at different times so that fertilization by its own ])Olien is impossible. And some of our flowers bave invented very ingenious devices in order to · .accomplish this purpose. Take our mountain laurel, for example. Each one of its ten stamens is bent backward away from ·its pistil and fastened into a little pocket in the corolla. But when visit~d by honey bees or other insects, the stamen is released, springs forward and dusts its ·pollen upon the invader. Corn, wheat a11d most of our grains and grasses depend upon the wind to carry its pollen. When a farmer plants a field of white -corn next to his neighbor's field of yellow corn practically every ear of corn in both crops is likely to be a mottled mixture of white .and yellow kernels. Go into the woods in springtime during the season when many of our forest trees are undergoing pollination, when the pollen grains are being wafted ·by the breezes from tree to tree, over maples, beeches, elms or, especially the pines, in tangible clouds. Sometimes the ground is fairly covered and I have seen pools of water actually '

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covered with a crust or scum of pollen from the surrounding forest trees.

Hybridization is the fertilization of a plant of one species by the pollen from a flower of another species. Much could be told about the habits and morals of our flowers. ,

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When our song birds are gone .

And the flowers are sear, When the song of the brooklet No longer we hear, When summer deserts us And winter is here, It is then, little greenlings, We are glad for your cheer.

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I am always thankful at the Christmas season if our woods are covered with a good depth of snow so that all our little evergreen plants are covered and hidden from gatherers of holiday greens, our little pipsisewas the dark green prince's pine, and the other little chimaphila known as spotted wintergreen, both becoming very rare, and the club mosses commonly known as ground pine. There are four varieties of these beautiful little creeping ev.ergreens, called . in diff erent localities, club mosses, ground pine, ground cedar and, by botanists, lycopodiums. They used to cover almost every rocky ledge and carpet all the deep-shaded recesses of our woods. But they have become rare unless we tralllp into the wild, unfrequented woods and mountains to find them. ' They revel all over our north woods, in the Green Mountains of Vermont, all around the White Mountains of New Hampshire and over most of northern Maine and New Brunswick. During the past two years I have taken, with a fishing party each spring, a seventy-five mile canoe trip down •

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the Cains River through central New Brunswick, . camping for two weeks along the river bank. What tramps around the surrounding woods, and it is practically all woods and rocky shrubby, wooded hills. Each of these trips was made in early May, the ground and · rocks on all sides covered with every variety of these little evergreens, with soft, velvety carpets of mosses and great patches of trailing arbutus in full bloom. In seve·ral places where we camped our tents and beds of spruce . boughs were pitched over masses of these fragrant little flowers. There were Pyrolas and there we1·e green patches of that graceful little evergreen . creeper,. the. twin flower,.. which -will be covered , with its. delicate little bloom a month later. This . is the flower that is named for the great pioneer . botanist, Linnaeus. It is called Lirinaea Borealis.

All of these, except . possibly the last named, . .... would grow in just as great profusiop in most of . our woods if ·protected or left alone for a few · . years. Indeed, we have a -~onderfully beautiful . . . . little evergreen creeping vine whic~ grows in many ·o. f. our · woods and .which in June gives us a . · sweetly fragrant _little pink _and white flower and, . later, its bright c·ri·mson berry. .These berries are loved by the birds, hence its name, .partridge berry _ .vine. Trailing arbutus, which not 1nany years ago · . was plentiful, can now be found in only a few . . places in our county and is growing more and , more rare every year. . : · · There is another little evergreen _which ·likes _ to carpet the dry, shady woods, especially where . there are pines and hemlocks, and it is fond of the same soil as our mountain laurel and will usually ·.

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be found growing with it. This is our wintergreen. I can remember, as a small boy in · the Berkshires, gathering the tender little plants when · they first came up in early spring,-.a spicy delicacy. In July it gi'1·es us a small, globular, white flower and later, in August, a bright red berry, large for so small a plant. These berries are edible a11dvery spicy. This is the little plant which gives us our wintergreen flavoring which, I suppose, is known to every boy and girl from their first stick of wintergreen candy. It is the Gaultheria of our pharmacopoeia and has long been extensively used as a medicine, besides being used as a flavoring by our cooks.

Practically all of these little evergreens are fast disappearing from our woods. I believe very few people, if they realize and stop to think, would (. wantonly destroy a shrub o·f mountain laurel or pull up one of these hardy little evergreens. But the laurel is broken down for its flowers and shiny green leaves and the little vines pulled up for their . beautiful green foliage. Let us not wait until it is too late to teach our children and every one over whom we can exert any influence, that many of our evergreens and wild flowers should be ''sanctuary'' . · and must not be ruthlessly destroyed.

Enlist every garden club member into a -league for ·the .,... preservation of these wild flowers and evergreens.

Refuse to buy them when offered for sale as wreaths or other decorations. Make this one of · the objects of our Boy Scout organizations. Yes, and our Girl Scouts, too. Teach them to assist nature in its work of beautifying the country by preventing the destruction of mountain laurel, •

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ground pine, trailing arbutus, azaleas, dogwoods and a few others of our friends in the woods and swamps. Remember that many people can enjoy a beautiful flower, but only one can pluck it. If left alone and given a chance they will thrive.

They ·are stout-hearted. We must remember that they brave the frost and ice of our long, cold, dreary winters .and are just as fresh and green when they greet us in the spring.

It may be said of any of our little evergreen friends, as the old German folk-song said of th .e hemlock tree : •

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''0 ! Tannenbaum, 0 ! Tannenbaum, Wie treu sind deine Blaetter .

Du gruenst nicht nur zur Sommer Zeit, Nein, auch im Winter wenn es schneit.

0 ! Tannenbaum, 0 ! Tannenbaum, W ie treu sind deine Blaetter !,'

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