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( meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever appliaa. Maps, piatee, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratioa. Those too large to be entirely included in one axpoaure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand comer, left to right and top to bottom, aa many framaa as required. The following diagrama illuatrate the method: L'axampiaire fiimi fut raproduit grAce d la g^n^rositi de: Bibliothdque Agriculture Canada Lea imagaa suivantea ont 4t* reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compta tenu de la condition et da la nattet* de I'exemplaire fiim«, at an conformity avec lea conditions du contrat de filmage. Lea exemplairas originaux dont la couverture an papier est imprim^ sont filmte an commanpant par la premier plat at an tarminant soit par la darni^re page qui comporte une ampreinte d'impreasion ou d'lllustration. soit par le second plat, selon le eas. Toua las autrea sxamplairas originaux sont fllm4a an commandant par la premiere page qui comporte une amprainta d'impression ou d'lllustration at an tarminant par la darniire page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un dee symbolea suivants apparattra sur la damiAre image de cheque microfiche, seion le caa: le symbole -^ signifie "A SUIVRE ', le symbols V signifie "FIN". Lea cartes, pianchea. tableaux, etc., peuvent itra filmte i dee taux de rMuetion diff«rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour itra reproduit an un seul cliche, 11 est fiim« i partir do I'angle supArieur gauche, de gauch<9 A droite. et da haut an baa, en prenant le nombre d'imagea nicessaira. Lea diagrammes suivants illuatrent la method*. 1 2 3 32 )( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7/3 "Industry need not wish" THE UBRARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE WEST M.OCI, onAWA, ONTAIIO Book No. 5f 1. -)IV Thit book ihould be returned thirty day* from dite of lo«n. No ;t«inp» «re necnury. i I r / (■■HlllRU MHiiiNxer'iiMt niiiNiMiniiiic " ««' n II Mf «wu A vumao ) cuiiiiiMiiiiinic •• ••> n la lutnn \ Vutaao ) •-•-'wnf'-wmfKmtam'rm FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. FROM original fflaater-color mamtiiti after feature, By ISAAC SPRAGUE. DESCRIPTIVE TEXT BY REV. A. B. HERVEY. WITH EXTRACTS FROM LONGFELLOU; LOWELL, BRYANT, EAlEhSON, AND OTHERS. TROY. N.Y.: NIMS AND KNIGHT. 1888. Copyright, iS8s, By H. B. Nims and Company. >1\hH ILLUSTRATIONS. Blood-Root . The Pasture This: • »^ The Partridge- Berry The Pitcher-Plant The Pale Laurel The Meadow Beauty . The Bur-Marigold The Climbing Hemp-Weed The White Bay . The Cardinal- Flower . »-\\hH I BLOODROOT. =*h':;-. ^}- I HAVE seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his car The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell. To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely; and his countenance soon Brightened with joy; for from within were heard Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed Mysterious union with its native sea. Even such a shell the universe itself Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times, I doubt not, when to you it doth impart Authentic tidings of invisible things; Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power; And central peai.e, subsisting at the heart Of endless agitation, Merc you stand, Adore, and worship, when you know it not; Pious beyond the intention of your thought; Devout above the meaning of your will. IVordszvofii, Blood-Root. SANGUINARIA CANADENSIS L. How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns I even as the flowers in Spring; To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief nuics away Like snow in May, As if there were no such cold thing. Who would have thought my shrivelled heart Could have recovered greenness? It was gone Quite under ground; as flowers depart To see their mother-root, when they have blown; Where they together, All the hard weather, Dead to the world, keep house unknown. And now in age, I bud again, After so many deaths I live and write; I once more smell the dew and rain, And relish versing: O my only light, It cannot be That I am he On whom thy tempests fell all night. Herbert. ■^if" FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. Nature also is an artist and an author. She paints the flowers before we copy them, and writes their simple story for us to tell again. We have put upon the first page of our book a charming flower, which she also displays upon the opening leaves of the great floral book of the year. The story of its modest life is not a long or a startling one, but perhaps it has a cheery word of hope, which weary, wintry hearts, longing for spring, may be glad to hear. In the very early April days, which in our New England clime are not over likely to be sunny days, before the leaves come out at all upon the trees, when the downy catkins are first showing the revival of life in the willows by the brook-side, before any green thing yet gladdens the eye in field or forest, and the brown dead grass and the brown dead leaves cover all the ground, then it is that in the edges of the moist, rich woods the Sanguinaria puts up its slender stem, crowned with its circlet of petals daz- zling white. It is a most beautiful flower, and, to my thoughts, a beautiful emblem of nature's Easter, its pure whiteness having something more than the earthly in its unstained loveliness. It seems almost to have lived its earthly course, and passing through the disrobing room of Death, which — "has left on her Only the beautiful." comes now as the promise, radiant and heavenly, of that touch of the Infinite Life by which all the dead are quickened. It is not easy to say why we see in a 1 these beautiful forms of nature these hidden meanings, and ddight to trace in them a likeness to our deeper thoughts and experiences. Are these BLOOD-ROOT. similitudes mere fanciful semblances, or are they indications that our clearer consciousness is but the sign of a universal life, which, after its kind, is conscious in every thing ? Are the mental and material worlds after all but separate rooms in the one house of Life, divided by a thin, flexible partition, so that a mox'ing breath in the one palpitates through the other in correlations of conscious thought? Who shall say? Still it remains true that we like to see our own thoughts and feelings mirrored in the larger doings and happenings of the Kosmos. We love that poet best who best humanizes nature, and finis a present counterpart of himself in the dumb life around him ; who, without seeming to exceed probability, or distort natural functions, discovers emotions in things which we have known in ourselves. We love his mes- sage most who puts his ear to the natural universe as to " The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell," and then tells us of ■"Authentic tidings, of invisible things. The central peace subsisting at the heart Of endless agitation." which it murmurs to his listening soul. So I am sure quaint George Herbert speaks to wide acceptance when he finds in the coming forth of the flowers in early spring from their abode "quite underground," where they have gone "to see their mother-root ; " and " Dead to the world, keep house unknown All the hard weadier," a deep illuminating correspoi.dence with that most precious PtOWiiRS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. spiritual experience, when the shrivelled heart, "on which tem- pests Icll all night," has " recovered greenness," and "Smells the dew and rain, And buds again." For nature teaches no sweeter lesson than when, with floral sym- bols, it repeats from year to year, to a sinful and mortal world, the pictured hope of man's moral and material rebuilding. And the Sanguinaria, with its blood-red root under ground, and its pearly purity up in tne April air, may rightly speak a word of hope to those who in obscurity and darkness have all their lives distilled only bitter tears, like drops of blood, from the griefs and defile- ments of their lot. For with it what a beautiful white soul has blossomed from a root-life so ensanguined and bitter I How greatly is it like those souls about the Throne " which have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." The poet's quaint fancy of flowers, "keeping house" all the win- ter long, underground, finds plenty of illustrations in the real life of mp.iiy plants, notably in this one. The housekeeping, however, does not use up in the winter what has been garnered in the sum- mer. It only just preserve 1 it for the early needs of the plant at the beginning of the next season, before it shall have time to draw anew from nature's great supplies. Through the long smnmer its broad, roundish leaves are opened and Mfted up to the sun a'--^ -xw, and with patient industry gather out of the air and .-• litoics of invisible food. These, mingling with the nutritious elements which its fine rootlets have sucked from the moistened soil, have been slo. "v elaborated and laid away in the red root-stalk, lying BLOOn-KOOT. like a hidden storehouse underground. So when the warm spring sun melts the locks and chains of frosty u inter, and sets free the whole imprisoned kingdom of plants, none are sooner ready to come forth and smile a welcome to the great Liberator than the red-footed, white-breasted Sanguinaria. The flower stays not long, and the plant, after producing the early harvest of seeds, surrenders, as just now indicated, most of the growing season to the prudent accumulation of sustenance for next year's flowering and fruit bearing. So it makes to-day renuer tribute to to-morrow, as to-day itself is in part tiie product of yes- terday. Thus its little life links its genti uions together with mutual helpfulness, and mingles the common .md popular blessing of receiving with the greater blessedness of giving. Concerning the blood-red liquid which freclv exudes when the stem or root-stalk is cut or broken, and which .irivcs the popular as well as the scientific name to Sanguinarin Prof. Goodale says : " In the case of nearly all plants from which a white or colored juice exudes, there is a special system of microscopic canals, consisting either of branched cells or . onfluent tubes, termed the Latex system. Thus in the Euphorbias, Lettuce and Poppy, the milky juice is contained in communicatirg Latex-tubes. But in some other cases, for example blood-root, th. colored juice is held in receptacles of a different character. In bl od-root these special receptacles are roundish or more elongated and possess very thin walls. While some of these sacs or cells re separated from each other, others are arranged in rows. This grouping into linear series is well marked in the more superficial parts." The colored juice of the Sanguinaria was used by the Indians as a dye. FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. Having referred to this plant as our sweetest floral emblem of nature's Easter, I cannot refrain from quoting a few stanzas from Phirbo Gary's well known lines, " Resurgam," in which she for- tifies her own heart, at the approach of death, by this hope which nature in the early spring so brightly illuminates: Nature's sepulchre is breaking, •And the earth, her gloom forsaking, Into life and light is waking. Oh, the weakness and the madness Of a heart that holdeth sadness When all else is light and gladness ! Shall not He who life supplieth To the dead seed, where it lieth, Qiiickcn also man, who dicth? Rise, my soul, then, from dejection, See in nature the reflection Of the dear Lord's resurrection. Let this promise leave thee never: " If the might of death I sever, Yc shall also live forever I " rn of from 3 for- t'hich THE PASTURE THISTLE. m «? a\mM^ The Pasture Thistle. CNICUS PUMILUS Torrey, THE THISTLE FLOWER. My homely flower, that blooms along The dry and dusty ways, I have a mind to make a sonf>. And make it in thy praise; For thou art favored of my heart, Humble and outcast as thou art. Though never with the plants of grace In garden borders set, Full often have I seen thy face With tender tear-drops wet. And seen thy gray and ragged sleeves All wringing with them morns and eves. Albeit thou livest in a bush Of such unsightly form, Thou hast not any need to blush — Thou hast tliinc own sweet charm; And for that charm I love thee so, And not for any outward show. Alice Caty. I NEED hardly make a point of formally introducing the Thistle to my readers. It has a faculty of pointedly introducing itself, and, FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. notwithstanding the humane admiration of our poet for this brist- ling denizen of the pastures, most people do not care for a very close or intimate acquaintance with it. I may say, however, that among botanists it is spoken of as belonging to the large tribe of composite flowers. The admirable picture by Mr. Sprague tells more of it at a single glance than could be conveyed by pages of description. It is in flower all summer, and may be found, in the latitude of New England and Pennsylvania, as far West as the Mississippi. Though so common, and so obnoxious as a weed, that few ever take any interest in it, it is not to be denied that it possesses a certain kind of attractiveness. In the artist's eye, its rich, red blossom, and its curiously cut and jagged leaves, are not without their elements of beauty. It has been made to serve ornamental if not useful ends, for it was early seized upon by the architect and designer as the basis of much fine orna- mentation both in colors and in carvings. Prof. Hulme says: "The Thistle has been largely employed in ornamental art, in some cases clearly for its own inherent beauty; in others as clearly from its heraldic and historic asso- ciations. A very beautiful example of it may be seen in a square panel in the Cathedral of Bruges, and again in the moulding on a tomb of Don Juan II., in that building; in numerous wooden panels (Gothic carvings) in the South Kensington Museum ; and on the monument of Mary Queen of Scots, in Westminster Abbey." It is best known, perhaps, as the national emblem of Scot- land, but how it came to be such, or what particular species of it first furnished the sturdy Scotchmen with their symbol, is much in dispute among the antiquarians and naturalists. In THE PASTURE THISTLE. any case it was not probably the one figured in our plate. Various legends undertake to account for its becoming the national sym- bol, and of course throw the origin of it far back into the past. This is one story: "When the Danes invaded Scotland, it was deemed unwarlike to attack an enemy in the darkness of the night instead of a pitched battle by day; but on one occasion the in- vaders resolved to avail themselves of stratagem, and, in order to prevent their tramp being heard, marched barefooted. They had thus neared the Scottish camp unobserved, when a Dane unluckily stepped upon a sharp thistle, and uttered a cry of pain, which immediately aroused the Scotch, who discovered the stealthy foe, and defeated them with great slaughter. The thistle was immediately adopted as the emblem of Scotland." For as good a reason Rome might have adopted the goose as its national bird, for did not a flock of cackling geese, on a like occasion, save Rome? There is, however, no authentic record of its ap- pearance in Scottish history in this relation earlier than 1458, when it is referred to in an inventory of the property of James III., of Scotland, as "a covering of variand purpir tarter browdin with thrissils and a unicorn," the unicorn being also an emblem of Scotland. The Scottish knighthood, the Order of the Thistle, is of com- paratively late origin. James I. of Great Britain, who was also James VI. of Scotland, on his accession to the throne of the United Kingdom, took as his badge a compound flower, half rose and half thistle, and the stalk supporting this floral monstrosity had on one side of it a rose leaf and on the other the leaf of a thistle. If national emblems are emblematic, as I suppose, strictly FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. speaking they are not, I can scarcely see why the Thistle should stand for the " Cannie Scot." There are, to be sure, points of resemblance, but they are quite superficial. The national motto, apropos of the emblematic Thistle, " Nemo me impitne /acessif, — No one provokes me with impunity," might indeed hint at tho pugnacious quality of the Scotch, especially in the matter of metaphysical theology; and the sharp points with which the Thistle always bristles may be no inapt symbol of the natural acuteness of the Scotchman's mind, and the native keenness of his wit. But underneath all, in him there is a rich store of hearty, genial humanity and kindliness, which find no adequate symbol in the burly thistle. Like everything else associated with his native land, it was dear to the heart of Burns, who meeting it in his farm work, says, — "The rough burr thistle spreading wide Among the bearded bear, I turned the weedcr-clips aside And spared the symbol dear." The early bad reputation of the Thistle among English speak- ing people, is obvious from its being made to figure so prominently in the "primal curse," pronounced upon the ground when Adani sinned in Eden, as related in our English Bible. "Cursed is the ground for thy sake. Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." It is not known what plants are here referred to, but the use of this word shows the real opinion our translators had of this well known English weed. It hasn't many friends, that is certain, and for the best of all reasons. It is not friendly. It has a sort of touch-me-not attitude toward all the world. It THE PASTURE THISTLE. has its virtues, no doubt, but tliey are not of the pleasing or conciliatory kind. If people want to admire it for what it has of worth or beauty, well and good, they may stand off and admire. If they don't, it is all the same to the thistle. It is bound to stand on its own feet, defend its own rights, and occupy its own place, let the world wag as it may. There seems to be a certain sturdiness of moral character about it which is not unlike what we find in similar independent, thistly, strongly individualized, and not very agreeable human mortals. They are here, and here to stay, and to take caro of their own, not without pugnacity, giving and taking thrusts. The world may be pleased or dis- pleased, it matters little to them; and the rest of us console ourselves by thinking about them, "Oh, well, it takes all sorts of people to make a world." While something may be said in a general way in behalf of this friendless weed, I should not expect to make it a favorite with the farmer. He is blinded by prejudice, a prejudice, how- ever, not altogether without some good grounds; for this plant yields food neither to himself nor his beast, and it absorbs much of the vital strength of the soil which ought to go to nourish his grain or his grass. Besides, I have no doubt he carries the memory of many sharp and painful thrusts which it has given him when he has taken it up unawares with his sheaves of wheat or oats. But the most interesting thing about the Thistle is the in- genious way by which it contrives to scatter its seed, — just as though there wouldn't be thistles enough for all practical pur- poses if the seeds were left to take their chances of planting by wind and weather. Nature has contrived for every one of its FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. myri^l seeds an airy little balloon, of the finest and lightest down, and it goes sailing away upon the wings of the wind like • another Montgolfier, whose famous aeronautics, indeed, this flying plant antedated many ages. Who ever saw a sunny summer day in the country when there were not multitudes of these fairy globes, each with an embryo plant in its breast, sailing lazily through the sultry air! What images of lightness and grace are these airy nothings from the thistle's white crown ! They will sail on and on, till the rain beats the buoyancy out of their wings, and then they will come down with the raindrop, and be planted far away from their native fields. I suppose most seeds are. left to the ordinary chances of the elements for dispersion and planting, but many of them are fur- nished with special appliances for it. Some of these are purely mechanical, the pod in which they grow being so contrived that as it ripens it brings its sides into a state of tension, which increases as the growth and ripening goes on, till at last it bursts open with a sudden and violent spring which scatters the seeds in every direction, sometimes many feet away. Then, again, other seeds are provided with barbed points, or with sharp hooks which readily seize upon any passing object, as the wool and hair of animals, perhaps the feathers of birds, certainly the clothing of men, and are thus carried long distances from their native home. Others, like the seeds of the maple and trumpet-flower, have their gossamer wings, by which they " fly away to be at rest " in some distant, hospitable soil. Many, like the thistle and dandelion, are furnished with buoy- ant envelopes of feathery fibre, which make them the sport of every breeze. This device, by which Nature disperses the seeds ill THE PASTURE THISTLE. of some of the humblest of its creatures, is of the greatest im- portance to man in at least one case, for the downy fibre which in the open boll covers the black seed of the cotton plant, clothes also the whole civilized race of man, and is the foundation of one of the chief and most astonishing industries of modern times. The water-lily, which produces its seeds beneath the surface of the water, has a curious contrivance for dispersing them. It encloses them in a light, thin bag, which is filled with air, and is impervious to water. This acts as a float or life-preserver to the seed, which, directly it is released from the mother plant, rises to the surface and floats away. " driven by the winds and tossed," or carried by the currents of water. By and by the sack bursts or decays, and the seed immediately sinks and is embedded in the mud at bottom, and is ready to produce a new plant in a new place. The plant world is full of those ingenious contriv- ances. But it is time we permitted our poet to tell the reason why she takes the thistle to her kindly regard. Thou hast no lovers, and for that I love thee all the more; Only the wind and the rain to be Thy friends, and keep thcc conipiuiy. So, being left to take thine case Behind thy thorny wall, Thy little head with vanities Has not been turned at all, And all field beauties give me grace To praise thee to thy very face. FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. So thou shalt evermore belong To me from this sweet hour, And I will take thee for my song, And take tliee for my flower, And by the great, and proud, and high, Unenvied, we will live and die. Alice Cary. THE PARTRIDGE-BERRY. i H^i \ Partridge-Berry. MITCHELLA REPENS L. Spring, with that nameless pathos in the air Which dwells with all things fair, Spring, with her golden sun and silver rain, Is with us once again. In the deep heart of every forest tree The blood is all aglee. And there's a look about the leafless bowers As if they dreamed of flowers. Yet still on every side we trace the hand Of winter in the land, Save where the maple reddens on the lawn Flushed by the season's dawn. Or where, like those strange semblances we find That age to childhood biad, The elm puts on, as if in Nature's scorn, The brown of autumn corn. As yet the turf is dark, although you know That, not a span below, A thousand germs are groping through the gloom And soon will burst their tomb. Henry Titurod, FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. This is by no means a spring flower, for it opens its delicate little twin blossoms of pink in the hot days of June and July. But I suppose the plant is associated in the minds of most lovers of nature with the memory of the very earliest sunny days of the year, for amidst the universal brown of early spring, its bright evergreen leaves, and its brilliant red berries, are almost the only things which gladden the weary eyes with bits of pleas- ing color. Here and there a little bank or tuft of moss, or a frond of rock-fern, adds its greenness, and shares with the Par- tridge-Berry the gratitude of eyes hungering for the tints of sum- mer. Especially grateful to us is this humble plant, in the time when its shining leaves and sparkling berries peep up from their nest in the dull dead leaves, sometimes just from under the edge of the retreating snow. But in the luxuriant life and color of mid- summer it would scarcely be noticed at all, as it modestly puts up its delicate pink flowers, in some dark nook, hidden away and crowded out of sight by a mob of obstreperous weeds. As red as the plump cheeks of this little berry commonly are, it has been sometimes found as white as snowdrops. A young lady sent some white ones, two or three years ago, from York, Pennsylvania, to Dr. Gray, the first he had ever heard of, it seems. In some parts of the country the aromatic Wintergrcen, or Checkerberry, is called the Partridge-Berry, Prof. Goodaie states. I am sure that in some parts of New York and Pennsylvania 1 have heard our plant called the Checkerberry, and in those regions, the latter name is not applied to the Wintergrcen, as it is in New England. The scientific name of the plant was given to it by the great Linnaeus, in honor of Dr. John Mitchell of Virginia, who, during the first half of the last century, was one of our best known PARTRIDGE-BERRY, botanists, and a valued correspondent of the founder of our science. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and is known in botanical science as the author of several short treatises on botany, which were issued in a collected form in London, in 1769. He certainly is among the most fortunate of men to have his name and memory embalmed in a plant at once so charming and so widely distributed as is the Mitchclla rcpcns. There is but one other species be- longing to that genus, and that is found in Japan. Dr. Gray has shown, in a very interesting paper, that many of our North Amer- ican forms are represented in the flora of that country. The Mayflower, or trailing Arbutus, so widely and deservedly popular in New England, is a case quite similar to that of the Mitchclla. There is but one other species of the Epigcca known, and that is a native of Japan. The most careless observer could scarcely fail to notice, that the bright red berry is furnished with a double " blow end," as though two flowers had assisted in its production. Such is the case. A single ovary bears twin flowers, which, indeed, sometimes come to be something more than "Siamese-twin" flowers, for they occa- sionally coalesce and form a single flower with an eight-lobcd corolla. Commonly, however, they are quite separate, and fructify the corresponding segments of the compound ovary on which they grow. The flowers themselves have individual peculiarities. In some the pistil is long and stands out beyond the mouth of the little hairy tube of the corolla, while the stamens are short and are con- cealed somewhere down in its obscure depths. ( her flowers will show an arrangement exactly the opposite of this, the pistil, with its four-parted stigma, will be short and hidden away in the tube while the stamens will protrude. It is evident that flowers, built i ir FLOWER;! OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. on this plan, cannot conveniently fertilize themselves. The parts involved in the act seem to be thus purposely arranged, so that they cannot come in contact. It has been observed in other flowers thus constructed, that they are very nicely arranged to utilize the help of bees and other insects in cross-fertilization, for the pollen from flowers with long stamens will be placed on the insect which comes for their honey, in exactly the right position to be most easily communicated to the stigma of a flower with a long pistil. So with the flowers having short stamens, and those having short pistils. If one looks closely he will see beneath the rows of roundish, opposite, green leaves, just at the base of the leaf-stalk, a pair of minute scales, or stipules. They seem to be of no use to the plant, nor are they ornamental But the trained botanist sees in them great significance. They are the unmistakable signs that our little creeping vine is the " long lost and far wandered scion of a noble house." This humble denizen of our woods has aristocratic connections, and is almost our only representative of a large and influential family in the kingdom of plants, whose native home is in a more genial clime than ours,— a family distinguished in some of its members, by the most considerable and most honorable ser- vices to mankind. I need mention but two or three of these to show that. The Coffee plant furnishes the material for a decoction which is the most universal and most delicious drink (when rightly made and rightly served) that art has yet educed from nature. In the bark of the Cinchona tree, Peruvian Bark, is found one of the most invaluable drugs employed in the art of healing, and one which, perhaps, as a defence against the subtle poisons of malaria, has PARTRIDGE-BERRY. saved more human lives than any other. In the pigment pro- duced from the Madder plant, we have the basis and substance of some of our most useful dyes. These, and several other useful plants that might be named, are all first cousins to our bright little friend of the early spring time. New are the leaves on the oaken spray, New the blades of the silky grass; Flowers, tliat were buds but yesterday. Peep from the ground where'er I pass. These gay idlers, the butterflies. Broke, to-day, from their winter shroud; These light airs, that winnow the skies. Blow, just born, from the soft white cloud. Gushing fresh in the little streams. What a prattle the waters make! Even the sun, with his tender beams, Seems as young as the flowers they wake. Children are wading, with cheerful cries, In the shoals of the sparkling brook; Laughing maidens, with soft young eyes, Walk or sit in the shady nook. Bryant. r l;l .:li I i #„;kia. ^M '1i|r. f Pitcher-Plant. SARRACENIA PURPUREA L. Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, " Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star, Sat gfray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence round about his lair; Forest on forest hung about his head Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, Not so much life as on a summer's day Robs not one light seed from the feathered ^rass, But where the dead leaf r W, there did it rest. A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more By reason of his fallen divinity Spreading a shade. The Naiad 'mid her reeds Pressed her cold finger closer to her lips. Along the margin-sand large footmarks went. No further tl.an to where his feet had strayed. And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed; While his bowed head seemed listening to the Earth, His ancient mother, for some comfort yet. Keats. This incomparable picture of a swampy vale deep Vx the woods, is so exactly like the native home of our purple Pitcher- . I.'i I- 1 ' I \ FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. Plant, that I could not resist the temptation to transfer it to our pages. Mr. Mechan thinks Longfellow must have had in his thought some image or memory of our southern Pitcher-Plant when, in the song of the "Slave in the Dismal Swamp," he made this life-like picture of southern vegetation, — Wlicrc will-o'-the-wisps and glow-worms shine, In bulrush and in brake; Where waving mosses shroud the pine. And the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine Is spotted like the snake; Where hardly a human foot could pass, Or a human heart would dare, On the quaking turf of the green morass He crouched in the rank and tangled grass Like a wild beast in his lair. Be this as it may, our plant is common all along our eastern border from Newfoundland to Florida, growing in bogs and swampy places, and flowering in the early summer. This plant introduces us to one of the most interesting fields of biological inquiry that has been opened in many a day. I refer to that curious instance, which these and some other plants illustrate, in which the vegetable kingdom seems to reverse the ordinary course of nature and makes reprisal upon the animal kingdom for its habitual foraging. In this as in many other departments of re- search the interest has been gr atly quickened, almost created, throughout the scientific world, by the magic touch of that one master spirit of the century, Charles Robert Darwin,— now alas, no more of earth! His monograph on Insectivorous Plants marks an era in this department of botanical science. I THE PITCHER-PLANT. Insectivorous plants are a group or physiological assemblage of plants which belong to a number of distinct natural orders <'They agree in the extraordinary habit of adding to the ordinary supplies of nitrogenous material afforded them in common with other plants by the soil and atmosphere, by the capture and consumption of insects and other small animals. The curious and varied mechan- ical arrangements by which these supplies of animal food are obtained, the way and degrees in which they are utilized, and the remarkable chemical, biological and electrical phenomena of pre- hension and utilization can only be fully understood by a separate and somewhat detailed account of the leading orders and genera - To give that would not come within the purpose of this paper and yet I think I may be able to embody enough of this strange' knowledge to give my readers some adequate idea of what happens when a plant devours "insects and other small animals." Take for example the common Sun-dew, Droscra rotumlifoUa of our bogs and swamps. It has a circle of long-stemmed round leaves which spring out horizontally from the bottom of the flower stalk near the ground. These leaves, which are not usually over half an inch diameter, are covered pretty thickly above with flexible hairs, or tentacles, to the number of two hundred and fifty or more, not longer than two-thirds of the diameter of the leaf Each of these tentacles bears at top a transparent drop of viscid gi.stening fluid which looks very like a drop of dew in the early sunshine. This gives the plant both its popular and its scientific name. Insects seem to be attracted to the leaves of this plant, perhaps by Its glistening appearance, perhaps by its odor or color, or by all combined. But if they come too near, or dare to light upon its FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. brilliant leaves, they will ^^et anything but a friendly welcome. A fly coming in contact with the viscid end of the tentacles finds itself stuck fast. He cannot get away even if but two or three of these silvery dewdrops touch him. But his struggles to do so awaken the active interest of all the neighboring tentacles, which immediately bend over toward him and fix upon him their adhesive tops. In fact an impulse seems to be spreading over the whole surface of the leaf, which sets all the parts into sympathetic activity. The leaf itself soon hollows under the victim and rolls up its edges, and thrusts down upon him more and more of its animated bead- topped hairs. Slowly he is pressed down upon the surface of the leaf, drenched in the abundant fluid which the leaf and its tentacles secrete, and in a quarter of an hour or so he is dead. But the leaf does not stop there. It holds its dead prey in its close embrace till it has fully digested him, for its tentacles and its superficial cells and glands constitute a true stomach, which secretes digestive fluids and deals with animal substances in exactly the same way that the animal stomach does. The nutri- tious resultants of this digestive process are absorbed into the tissues of the plant and help to nourish it. A chemical analysis of the fluids produced in this vegetable stomach, and a careful obser- vation of their action upon all nitrogenous substances which ordi- narily constitute the food of animals, show that in almost all respects it runs in an exact parallel with the functions of that organ in the animal economy. It appears to be strictly car- nivorous, as it will not digest vegetable or purely carboniferous substances, such as gum-Arabic, sugar, starch, olive oil, etc. Wa n v/e then here the leaf of a plant possessing a true animal function. THE PITCHER-PLANT. The Venus Flytrap, Diona^a ,nusdp,,/„.^„Mi',t of southeastern North Carolina, is another earnivorous plant. At the extremity of .ts obeordatc leaves, are two lobes standing at something less than a right angle to each other, hinged together at the back upon the prolonged midrib of the leaf. The edges of these lobes are armed with long spines which shut by and between each other when the lobes close. Each of the lobes has three slender, sharp sens.ttve hairs placed triangularly some little distance apart upon us .nner surface. The slightest touch upon either of these hairs as the hghting upon it of the smallest insect, or brushing it with thetr w-tngs, or touching it with their legs or bodies as they crawl over the surface, causes the lobes to shut together like a trap instantly .mprisoning the unwary victim. If he be not too laree .0 pass between the closed teeth at the edge of the lobes he may escape. Otherwise he is doomed, for the leaf immediately pours out upon h,m from glands specially provided an abundance of d.gest.ve flu,d which soon kills and dissolves him As with the Sundew so with the Dio„c.^. a true digestive process takes place perfectly analogous to that in the animat econ- omy and the plant gets much nourishment from this source of food supply. I, has been observed that plants provided with this spec,al adaptation for securing food have smaller roots than other kmds of plants no. so furnished. There are several other genera of pants .hat possess this extraordinary function, which we have heretofore considered an exclusive attribute of anin.al life But ,„ the Sarraceuia we have the ease of plants adapted to ^P.ure.and devour insects, but with no ability truly to digest them Whtle they entrap and destroy great nun.bers of .hen a„d , obvtously contrived especially to do that, , hey make use of th.m Ill ! i FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. as nourishment in away more analogous to the processes of plant life than do the Drosera and Dioncen. We are indebted to an admirable study of Sarraccnia vam- laris, published in 1874, by Dr. Mellichamp of South Carolina, for the best report yet made of the insect-capturing habit of the Pitcher-Plant. The species abovx-named is larger than the one so accurately represented in our plate. It has yellow flowers, and the trumpet-shaped "pitcher" is from ten to twenty inches long, and is covered at top with an overarching hood which quite effectually excludes the rain. It grows common in the South and is often transplanted into the house to serve as a domestic fly-trap. It is furnished with the necessary appliances for capturing insects in this way. Along the leaf border or wing of the pitcher quite down to the ground are secreted at regular short intervals drops of a sweet liquid which is very prlatable to flies, ants, bugs, and other insects. These make a baited path, or honey-trail straight up the leaf to the open mouth of the pitcher at top. Around the margin of the mouth and well down the interior the sugary drops exude. Of course the hungry insect led up the honeyed road of danger presses on regardless of peril, over the margin, down into the open mouth of the pitcher, mindful only of the abundant sweets. But he soon comes to a place on the inner surface of the pitcher where he cannot maintain his foothold. The surface for several inches is there covered with a velvety nap of downward-pointing smooth hairs. An ant, or any other wingless insect, directly he steps upon this treacherous surface falls into the depths, where he finds the narrowing space for several inches beset on all sides with long sharp spines pointing inward and downward. His frantic efforts THIi PITCHER-PLANT. to escape only serve therefore to push him further and further toward the bottom. But before he reaches that he vVU find himself plunged mto a watery liquid which the leaf secretes, and which acts upon him first as a powerful narcotic or anaesthetic, and when he IS once dead, as a dissolvent which will quickly change his tissue into a •' liquid fertilizer " wherewith to nourish the hungry plant. ° ■' Winged insects in most cases fare but little better for if they fly directly upward when they lose their foothold, they stnke their heads against the overarching hood, and are perhaps beaten back too far to recover themselves before they are en- gulfed, or take a zigzag course downward to their destruction At al events, the long tube of this plant is often found a quarter or half ull of dead or decaying insects. That our co„,mo„ P Cher-Plan, carries on the same business less perfectly, though w,th no dtfferen. purpose, may be seen by examining ly w!, developed eaf with its tube lined with bristling downward-pointing sptnes, and half filled with a watety liquid and drowned insects The flower of this plant is certainly a very singular one. The p,st,l consists of an enormous style, which resembles a par- asol or a toadstool more than anything else, with the stigma in Tr ""tn, ""'" ""= ""' °' "^ '°''^^- '"'^ P^'^'^. -ched .n hke a fiddle, pass out between the re-entrant angles of the expanded style. The origin as well as the appropriateness of the English popular name of this plant, .he ■• Side-saddle Flower," appears to be undtscoverable. The generic name was given in honor of Dr Sarrazm, of Quebec, who, many years ago, firs, sent specimens of th,s plant, w,.h some account of its habits, to European bot- li'f! FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. anists. This genus, which contains some six or eight exclusively American species, is closclv related to the Darlingtonia, a curi- ously uooded Pitcher-Plant of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the still more singular Nepenthes, from the islands of the Indian Ocean, which have tendril-like prolongations of the leaf, some- times two feet or more long, becoming at their ends, perfectly developed pitchers. Altogether, when we get among these plants with such strange forms and such wonderful habits and functions, we can begin to understand something of what our Longfellow meant when he wrote of that great naturalist, his well-beloved friend, Agassiz; And Nature, the old nurse, took The child upon her knee, Saying: "Here is a story-book Thy Father has written for thee." "Come wander with me," she said, "Into regions yet untrod; And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God." And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him, night and day, The rhymes of the universe. And whenever the way seemed long. Or his heart began to fail, She would s'ng a more wonderful song. Or tell a more marvellous tale. THE PALE LAUREL. \-\ X 'ygtf- i I ' I Ill The Pale Laurel. KALMIA GLAUCA Ait. Now swells the forest, calm and wide, In I ppling waves of deepest green, And all the rugged mountain side Through billowy curves is seen; The roadsides meet in ample shade, W.th showers of light and golden glooms, And bubbling up the rocky ways The clustered Laurel blooms. Each chalice holds the infinite air, Each rounded cluster grows a sphere; A twilight pale she grants us there, A rosier sunrise here; She broods above the happy earth, She dwells upon the enchanted da--,-- A th(Misand voices hail her birth In chanfs of love and praise ! Elaine Goodafe. Ti.nRH are throe species of Laurel common in the Unr .- States the most showy being the Mountain Laurel, a conspicuous upla.ni shrub, growing from four to twenty feet hi,.h, and crowned in mf.i- summer with splendi.i corymbs of rose-coh)red blossoms. From FLOWERS OF THI- FIELD AND FOREST. Ill this is easily distinguished the Dwarf Laurel of the louver hills and plains, by its smaller plant and flower, and by the fact thai its blos- soms are produced below the ends of the branches. Our I'ale Laurel grows in peat-bogs and other swampy places, and differs from, both the others by flowering in the spring, and by having nar- row ioavos which are folded back al"ng the edges and, covered on the under side with a white bloom or dust, whence the naaic, Pale Laurel. T*'c flov. ei of the Laurel is unique, the corolla not imperfectly rescmbli'n;; a saucer in shape. Kabnia is an Amcioan gcnus, though the Heath family, to which it belong-'-.is fa-iious in the Old World, especially in the Brit- ish Isles, where the Heather, the favorite of the poets, often forms no inconsiderable element in the beauty of otherwise barren moor- lands. Its nearest relatives here are the Azalia, Rhodora. Blue- berry, Cranberry, Huckleberry, etc., and some other like shrubs; though it by no means bears so good a reputation as these last- name.' useful plants. It has the name of being decidedly poison- ous, und the Dwarf Laurel has a popular title, the Lambkill or Sheep- Laurel, which indicates this. How well it deserves its bad fame I know not. From time out of mind the poets have spoken of the Laurel as the particular plant whose leaves make the victor's wreath. "The Laurel, ineetl of" mi i ^ i 'I The Meadow Beauty. RHEXIA VIRGINICA L. A THING of beauty is a joy forever : Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothin-ness; but will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and ,uiet breathing. Therefore, on e^■ory morrow arc we wreathing A flowery baml to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Ot noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways Made for our searchin.,.; yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty uu.ves above the pdl Fron, our dark spirits. Such the sun. the moon, Irees old and young, sprouting a shadv boon For simple sheep; .and such are daffodils W.th the green world they live in; the clear rills That for themselves a cooling covert make Oamst the hot season: the mid-forest brake Rich with a .sprinkling of fi.ir musk-rose blooms: And such, too, is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead- All lovely tnles that we l.ne he/.rd or ^ead: An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring into us from the heavens' brink. Kcafs. FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. Nobody seems to know why so beautiful a flower has so barbarous a r.ame. Though some, curious in these things, have traced the name all the way back to Pliny, who knew a plant of that name, they are still driven to the conclusion so sententiously expressed by Dr. Gray, that " Rhexia has been applied to this genus without obvious reason." It is thought to have some value as a "vulnerary," or, in other words, to be useful in the cure of wounds. Whatever may be said about its scientific, nobody will call in question the peculiar fitness of its popular name. It surely is "a thing of beauty," and so, by the poet's logic, " a joy forever." It affects swamps and damp meadows as its favorite haunts, and has a pretty wide distribution throughout the eastern United States. A singular fact about it is that it is the only represen- tative in our northern regions of an enormously large order of plants native in tropical America. The order contains a thousand species or more; and out of them all, only this solitary one has had the courage to emigrate north or undertake to live beyond the thirtieth parallel. A striking peculiarity of the order is the strongly ribbed leaves, the ribs varying from three, in the Rlicxia, to as many as nine in other genera. Another noticeable peculiarity of this order is the long curved anther which is attached to the filament at the niicldlc. It usually has also an additional process like a spur appc;tring near the point of attachment, as may be seen in this species. Prof. Goodale says, "the pollen consists of ex- tremely minute grains which escape through a pore at the apex of the tapering anther." I have recently seen the statement madn by some observer, that the larger end of the anther is a I THE MEADOW BEAUTY. kind of inflated air sac, with thin walls, which when pressed upon or struck, as when an insect lights upon it or touches it with his rapidly moving wings, it acts like a bellows and blows little puffs or jets of pollen dust out of the small pore at the end. Thus the stigma of the flower or the insect himself gets abun- dantly besprinkled with the fertilizing powder, which we can easily see he might convey to other Rliexia blooms. We can scarcely look upon so beautiful a wild-flower as this without asking ourselves how came these colors and these strange forms of beauty? Are they for themselves alone? Or are they to please the aesthetic taste of the beholder, for " Since eyes were made for seeing Beauty is its own excuse for being." Still, it must be remembered if we think we will make that answer, that, — "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen And waste its sweetness on the desert air." And, ages and ages after the flowers began to bloom, there was upon the earth no beauty-drinking eye to cjuaff ethereal sweetness from their tinted petals. Did they serve no good end in all those vast periods? The naturalist, who thinks he must find a reason for everything he sees in nature, has undertaken to show how plants came to have flowers at all ; that is, of course, petals, or colored sepals, the showy parts of the flower, for all kinds of plants except the very lowest have the essential part-; of a flower, the staminatc and pis- tilatc elements and mechanism. To state the naturalist's conclu- sion broadly I should say, the floral envelope has been evolved, If FLOWERS OP THE FIELD AND FOREST. by mean, of insect., and for the purpose of further securing her help ,„ the act of pollcniza.ion. That insects have some th,„g nnportaut to