HEIR HAVNTS -NRLF B M 313 Otfi - V MABEL- OSGOOD • WRIGHT The Gift of Beatrix Farrand to the General Library University of California, Berkeley Ex Libris BEATRIX JONES LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE REEF POINT GARDENS LIBRARY FLOWERS AND FERNS IN THEIR HAUNTS STAND &Y THAT Gfe£AT PLACE SN TRUTW A H A UN T OF TH E ^ COPYRIGHT, 1901 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY $@ount {pleasant printer? J. HORACE MCFARLAND COMPANY HARRISBURG • PENNSYLVANIA LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE US W6 LANDSCAPE ARCH. LIBRARY Booft 10 £>rUicatfl> to dStogtm > $®V Ponp (bp to|)o0e name t&ere i)anc0 a tale) in recognition of our frien&0|>ip of fifteen pearu, anU of |)er intelligence in ftnotoing tol^rn to stanti still INVITATION ILL you stroll with me awhile across the fields and round the wood edge in search of flowers and ferns ? I offer no apology, and no new thing as lure, save perhaps the point of view — the flower in the landscape. Wild flowers taken from their surround- ings and considered as aggregations of calyx, corolla, stamen and pistil are wholly dif- ferent from the same flowers seen in their native haunts. Wild Roses clustered in a crystal bowl, like their more robust garden sisters, are beautiful, but they lose the shy loveliness that they wore before you gathered them from beside the mossy bars of the old pasture. The Cardinal Flower, that shows its red hood along the waterways or stands sentinel to guard the Closed Gentian where it drowses in moist shade, looks dull and lifeless when massed Vlll INVITATION in your stateliest jar. Anemones hang their heads and the Blue Gentian closes its "fringed eye- lids " on leaving home. The flower in its haunt is a part of the landscape, a tint on nature's palette not to be heedlessly removed. The great patches of red and gold Samphire are the glory of the autumn marshes; plucked, they are but leafless plants of curious structure, chiefly valued in their green state by the natives for pickling. Perchance you are a botanist, knowing all plants by name and attribute, apt in Latin and techni- calities; have you ever in a purely friendly sense visited the flowers and ferns in their haunts ? I do not mean, have you gone in search of a particular plant that you wished to study, trans- ferred it triumphantly to your vasculum; toiled over it patiently and finally stowed it away with its life pressed out, though very neatly labeled. This sort of acquaintance is that of the reporter with the person he must of necessity interview to gain special information, the other the after friend- ship of those between whom the door is never closed. INVITATION IX The wild flower and fern is only to be truly known where it creeps, clings or sways untroubled in its home. If you may not follow the trail either afoot, awheel or on horseback, spare an idle hour to look with the eye of the mind and the camera at a few of the flowers and ferns in their haunts. M. O. W. WALDSTEIN, March 30, 1901 CONTENTS PAGE I. THE COMING OF SPRING i II. ALONG THE WATERWAYS . .... 33 III. ESCAPED FROM GARDENS ..... 63 IV. IN SILENT WOODS 93 V. SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS . . . . . 123 VI. POISONOUS PLANTS . 157 VII. THE FANTASIES OF FERNS. . / . . 185 VIII. FLOWERS OF THE SUN ., ... . . 219 IX. A COMPOSITE FAMILY 243 X. WAYFARERS . . .... . . . 273 XL THE DRAPERY OF VINES . , . -,r . 295 XII. AFTERMATH , . ... 321 INDEX AND GLOSSARY ..*... 343 ILLUSTRATORS' NOTE THE thanks of the illustrators for valuable assistance are due to Miss Mira Lloyd Dock, Miss Martha Buehler, Professor F. A. Waugh, Captain Charles Mcllvaine, and particularly to Mr. O. P. Beckley. The full -page plates are engraved directly from the photographs. The text cuts, with but two exceptions, have been drawn over the original photographs, showing that mechanical accuracy and artistic effect are not incompatible. The initials of the illustrators indicate the part taken by each in the work. LIST OF FULL -PAGE PLATES Pac|ng page A Fern Haunt (frontispiece) M. O. W. . The Coming of Spring— False Hellebore, Skunk Cabbage, etc J. H. McF. . 4 Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Wild Ginger, etc. . . Spring Beauty Wild Mandrake Dutchman's Breeches Shadbush Large Blue Flag 12 19 22 27 30 37 (xiii) XIV ILLUSTRATIONS Facing Pickerel Weed and White Water Lilies . M. O. W. . ''44 The Lower Pond— Lizard's Tail " .48 Purple Closed Gentian J. H. McF. . 53 Rose Mallow " . 60 "The Kenilworth Ivy that Clings" ... " .64 Bouncing Betsy M. O. W. . 69 Elecampane J. H. McF. . 76 Jerusalem Artichoke, or Earth Apple ... " -83 The Flag of Truce— Flowering Dogwood . " -94 "The White Wood Trilliums" " .96 Mountain Laurel " . 101 Indian Pipe M. O. W. . 108 Oak-leaved Gerardia " . 113 Tree-bridge " . 128 Showy Orchis J. H. McF. . 134 Yellow Moccasin Flower " .139 Calopogon . 145 Fly Amanita M. O. W. . 160 Stramonium, or Jimson Weed J. H. McF. . 176 The Unfolding of Osmunda .185 A Glade of Cinnamon Ferns " . 192 Rock Polypody M. O. W. . 197 Christmas Ferns . 204 The Silvery Glint of Spleenwort J. H. McF. . 209 Beech Ferns in the Open . 215 Maidenhair M. O. W. . 218 Prickly Pear J. H. McF. . 228 Butterfly Weed and Toad Flax " .236 Common Silkweed . 240 Sunflower Lane M. O. W. . 246 Black-eyed Susan J. H. McF. . 251 Cat-tails and Swamp Goldenrod . 256 Brook Sunflower . 260 New England Aster " . 264 ILLUSTRATIONS XV Facing page Ragged Goldenrod J. H. McF. . 269 Thorns by the River . 274 A Wild Hedge— Red-berried Elder ... . 279 Elder Flowers .282 Wild Bergamot . 287 Wild Lettuce .291 Staghorn Sumac . 294 Clematis — Virgin's Bower . 299 Virginia Creeper — "Throwing its lovely draperies" . 302 The Frost Grape M. O. W. . 305 Balsam Apple J. H. M"cF. . 308 Great Bindweed, or Wild Convolvulus . . M. O. W. . 316 Cat-tails Gone to Seed J. H. McF. . 321 Silkweed • . M. O. W. . 325 "The Frost Traceries Upon the Window Panes" " .332 LIST OF TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS Page Nell (dedication) M. O. W. . T Hepatica (initial) J. H. McF. . vii Pussy Willow (initial) . . I Skunk Cabbage M. O. W. . -* Marsh Marigold J. H. McF. . n Trailing Arbutus . 14 Red Wake Robin .15 False Solomon's Seal . » . . " . 17 Violets M. O. W. . 23 Wild Columbine . 25 Spring Beauty, Bloodroot and Dutchman's Breeches " . 28 Wild Geranium J. H. McF. . 32 XVI ILLUSTRATIONS Page Turtlehead (initial) J. H. McF. . 33 Button-bush M. O. W. . 40 Pitcher-plant J. H. McF. . -^ Arrowhead M. O. W. . 4 Swamp Loosestrife, growing -49 Swamp Loosestrife, detail -5° Marsh Samphire . 51 Sweet Pepper-bush 52 Seaside Gerardia . 59 The Lilac House " . 63 Orange Hawkweed . 68 Live-forever and Cypress Spurge M. O. W. . 71 Catnip and Thyme -75 Blackberry Lily J. H. McF. . 78 Coronilla M. O. W. . 81 Red Day Lily " . 82 The Ruined Chimney " . 85 Shinleaf (initial) J. H. McF. . 93 Shooting Star " . 95 Wild Sarsaparilla " .103 Four-leaved Milkweed " .109 Wild Blue Phlox " . m False Beech Drops M. O. W. . 112 Pipsissewa •II5 Black Cohosh J. H. McF. . 116 Ragged Orchis (initial) M. O. W. . 123 Pink Moccasin Flower J. H. McF. . 132 Yellow Moccasin Flower . " .187 Twayblade M. O. W. . 138 Calopogon J. H. McF. . 142 Yellow Fringed Orchis " .150 Ladies' Tresses, Fringed Gentian and Marsh Shield Fern M. O. W. . 153 Rattlesnake Plantain " . 154 ILLUSTRATIONS XVli Page Showy Lady's Slipper J. H. McF. . 156 Poison Hemlock (initial) M. O. W. . 157 Poison Ivy . .162 Poison Ivy and Virginia Creeper .163 Poison Sumac .168 Jimson Weed (seed pod) J. H. McF. . 175 Climbing Nightshade M. O. W. . 177 Black Nightshade J. H. McF. . 178 Pokeberry . 179 Staggerbush . 181 Wild Cherry .183 Climbing Fern M. O. W. . 185 Walking Fern .188 Brake and Colic-root . . J. H. McF. . 191 Royal Fern " -194 Evergreen Wood Fern M. O. W. . 196 Christmas Fern .198 Lady Fern . 199 New York Fern " .200 Sensitive Fern . 201 Grape Fern . 203 Spinulose Shield Fern . 204 Silver Spleenwort . 205 Hay-scented Fern . 207 Maidenhair Spleenwort . ' .211 Ebony Spleenwort . 216 Slender Iris (initial) . 219 Sundrops . 226 Yellow Star Grass . . . . J. H. McF. . 227 Canada Lily, Late Meadow Rue and Meadow Sweet Spirea J. H. McF. • 229 Red Wood Lily M. O. W. . 231 Turk's Cap Lily .232 Meadow Lilies . 233 XV11I ILLUSTRATIONS Page Purple Gerardia M. O. W. . 241 Blue Fringed Gentian . 242 Brook Sunflower (initial) " . 243 Boneset and Joe Pye . 245 Blue-stemmed Wood Goldenrod . 249 Silver Rod and Fragrant Goldenrod ... .251 Early Purple Aster J. H. McF. . 256 White Heath Aster M. O. W. . 257 White Wood Aster J. H. McF. . 266 Seaside Goldenrod M. O. W. . 269 White Wreath Aster " .270 Blazing Star J. H. McF. . 271 Wild Crab Apple " .273 Tansy M. O. W. . 275 Choke Cherry " .278 Meadow Sweet Spirea . 280 Rabbit's Foot Clover " .285 Steeplebush and Wild Carrot " .286 Bayberry and Sweet Fern . 289 Purple- flowering Raspberry . 290 Pink Knotweed . 292 Wild Convolvulus J. H. McF. . 295 Climbing Hemp weed M.O.W. . 297 Hyacinth Bean • 300 Trailing Wild Bean " -303 Trumpet Honeysuckle . 306 Mountain Fringe J. H. McF. . 309 Wild Yam M. O. W. . 310 Carrion Flower •3I3 Climbing False Buckwheat " .314 Jack-in-the-PuIpit Berry and Winterberry (initial) .321 Dogwood Berries J. H. McF. . 324 Virginia Creeper M. O. W. . 327 ILLUSTRATIONS XIX Page Bittersweet J. H. McF. . 329 Partridge Vine M. O. W. . 331 Spicebush Berries • 333 Witch Hazel J. H. McF. . 334 Cedar Berries M. O. W. . 336 Catbrier - 339 The Fire Logs— Finis .341 I THE COMING OF SPRING 'HEN Time o' Year padlocked his cabin door and with his trout pole under his arm wafted across the meadow path until he vanished like a shadow between the willows, the hillside people knew that, whatever other signs might fail, Spring was surely at hand. Time o' Year made no pretentions to weather prophecy — in fact, he was altogether an unpre- tentious mortal, coming, going, and biding his own time silently, like the spirit of some straight white frost -shaft. Yet his smile was never frosty. It came far back from his deep -set eyes and quiv- ered among his wrinkles whenever he was ques- tioned about the state of the woods, the height of the river at the remoter bridges or the prospect of trout catching, until the questioner always felt that the old man was possessed of secrets told him by no one but the Magician himself, and which he was pledged not to reveal. 2 THE COMING OF SPRING It was his favorite saying, his apology for any halt in the progress of things, that had given him the name of "Time o' Year," by which alone I first knew him — a name also in full accord with his cheerful temper and his loyalty to outdoor life. "The river 's a leetle overcrowded beyond the glen, but none too full for the time o' year. Trout 's few as yet, and what 's come down 's too skart and dazed with the flood to see a fly, but that 's what I allus reckon on, this time o'year!" If, however, you spoke of the nesting place of a shy bird or the haunt of some elusive flower, his attitude would instantly change and he would subtly begin to sift your motives. No rustic gossip he, to tattle of woodland doings to the merely curious. If he deemed his questioner a collector, seeking to despoil the woods of flower and feather either for gain or private hoarding, that person's fate was sealed. Should a botanist appear, provided with microscope and vasculum, his contempt was hardly less deep, and he would reveal the location of noth- ing rarer than a field of Buttercups, perhaps, feign- ing ignorance of plant lore, yet muttering to him- self: "Schoolma'ams! I know 'em! poking their fingers into posies' mouths to feel their teeth, and splittin' 'em open to count their ribs! Then like THE COMING OF SPRING 3 as not yanking the rest up by the roots to dry 'em into hay. Yes, I 've caught 'em at it and seen it done ! "Sometimes they say they want my flowers to paint 'em into pictures. 'Paint away,' sez I, 'they 're here ready to sit for ye from frost -leaving to frost -coming, but look out ye don't spoil the pictures God 's filled the earth with, in so doin'.' "The names they give 'em, too! Long enough to make a man think the woods is full of diseases like what the town doctor fetches over to the hill- top folks when they have colic!" By "hilltop folks" he meant the summer people a half day's ride away, who were the bane of his usually placid life. It was they who, eager for "local color," insisted in intruding upon his cabin, snapping their impertinent little cockney cameras at everything within range. Asking questions as to where he obtained his delicate fishing rod, how he learned the art of tying flies of original design; also probing his past and present hermit way of life ruthlessly. Why had he let his farm on the hilltop go into other hands? Was it still his, or had he given it up for taxes? Alack ! Why is it that money and good breed- ing are accumulated in an inverse ratio? The peo- 4 THE COMING OF SPRING pie who come out to conquer the land by purchase so often have only the one, the people born on the soil the other. The native New Englander certainly has a highly developed bump of curiosity, which properly cultivated is neighborliness, but before it is placed the right of the individual to privacy. Doubtless there were many things that the hilltop folk desired to know concerning the old man, whose forbears for two centuries had tilled the soil that now lay a fallow waste of wild grass and field flowers. The middle-aged remembered his young wife, the daughter of the glen miller, and their only child, a restless, questioning boy who had disappeared short of forty years before, some said with a peddler, others to go to the civil war. Was he alive or dead? No one knew. Par- cels were left at the cabin at rare intervals by the carrier, and the old man had many little things not of local origin, like his fishing rod and gun. But his neighbors asked him no questions, and he had remained a myth of the fifteen -mile circle that swings around Tree -bridge, Lonetown, the Glen and the Hollow. One day in middle April, after a winter so long and cold that it had almost numbed even the memory of growing things, Nell and I went out to THE COMING OF SPRING False Hellebore — Adder' s-Tongue — Skunk Cabbage THE COMING OF SPRING 5 look for Spring. That is to say, I did the looking and Nell, being a pony, the walking, a comfortably cooperative arrangement, for like many prospectors we went far afield for what we might have found close at hand. But when the Spring thirst for outdoors comes upon one, the hunting cools the fever of longing nearly as much as the finding. Up and out of the house! Away from houses! Away from the pleasantness of the planted and sheltered garden things that do not indicate the pulsings of wild nature! Nell snorted and pranced with joy, experiencing a sort of horse second - childhood as the keen breeze scattered tiny tufts of her loosened winter coat to feather wayside briars and offer early birds rare bargains in all- wool nest lining. Myrtle warblers flitted along the waysides mingling the remains of winter worn Bay and Poison Ivy berries with fresh ants in a sort of Spring salad. Fox sparrows and white- throats sent up an occasional retrospective melody from pastures where the snow had held the seeded grasses against the wind's caprices, and quail ran noiselessly by through the undergrowth or told their names boldly from a fence rail. It was still two hours before noon when we found ourselves over the hills and well within Time o' Year's 6 THE COMING OF SPRING country, on a sunny cross-road that led through Lonetown. Ah! the silence! Yet after all the deepest quiet is made by the perfect harmony of subdued sounds. Dry leaves scurried along the fences; then the rush of the distant mill stream separated itself from the stillness; next the trickle of a near-by brook that in its spring madness had lost its reckoning for a space and, after turning a low meadow into a pond, gropingly found its rocky pathway through the woods again. Two gray rabbits crossed the road with long leaps, and a light footstep overtook us. It was Time o' Year with his trout pole, emerging from a furry -clawed clump of Pussy Willows, that skirt the meadow, to follow the brook again. I ventured to ask him, "Does Arbutus still grow in the woods by the Hollow road?" Dropping his rod so that he rested on it like a staff, he looked at me critically, the shrewd expression that came over his face as he spied my camera and appurtenances changing to one of undoubted satis- faction as he discovered neither spade, trowel, basket or tin box; yet he would not commit himself, and merely said, "Did it use to grow there?" moving on as he spoke. THE COMING OF SPRING ^ There was no time to be lost, so I quickly told him that I had not come to pull to pieces or transplant, that the flowers of those woods and hillsides were old friends of mine whose names were written long ago in both brain and heart. That now I only came to see them in their haunts; my quest being of the bird in the tree, the flower in the landscape, — the spirit, not the letter of the law ; the meaning, not the anatomy. For a moment I feared that Time o' Year did not understand my explanation, born of the first real touch of Spring and my desire to propitiate him. He did, however, but his ideas came to him more by thought than through words. "Arbutus does grow yet in the Holler woods, only folks don't think it does or there would n't be any. Come and see!" Refusing the proffered ride he strode up a wood path, taking a short cut while we followed slowly, Nell halting now and then to snatch at a tuft of young grass. The change of flower growth from Spring to Fall is made no less wonderful by its regularity, and the bareness of Spring is as different from the nakedness of Winter as slimness is from thinness. The greater number of the early blooms are pale, and hide in the grass or under dead leaves ; they 8 THE COMING OF SPRING have less landscape value therefore than the flowers of Summer and Autumn that crowd the fields and march up to the roadsides to demand attention. The first three to appear, sometimes in rapid succession and sometimes together, precede even their own leaves, the Skunk Cabbage having its rank flowers enclosed in a pointed wrapping like the bouquets of the Madeleine flower market, while the flesh tints of the Trailing Arbutus and the lavender or white Hepaticas are enhanced by the dark -toned resistant leaves of the past season. Wise Magician, so to set your scenery, while the peep- -- ing marsh frogs twang away on a single fiddle -string, as befits the first arrivals in an orchestra! Vivid color and wild music would be a too abrupt transition from the season of etched outlines, and silence that is only broken by the calling of crow, owl and jay, the snapping of icicles and the winds whistling. The Magician, though he keeps flower and leaf -bud ready so that he may THE COMING OF SPRING 9 unfold rapidly, is the very prince of modulators, and does nothing jarringly. Time o' Year rejoined us in the lane with its grass -divided wheel tracks. On the right the bank sloped to the trout stream; on the left it was part of a rocky, wooded hillside. The bushes were almost leafless and the usually narrow stream was again trespassing on the lowlands. "It might be November," I said, leaving Nell and going down to the water's edge. "No, it might not: look!" said Time o' Year, jerking his head backward over his shoulder. There, almost at my feet, unharmed by the drift of the stream, was a Skunk Cabbage, its thick, green leaves so far developed as to show that it had been long in bloom. Beside it grew a stalk of False Hellebore, with its crumpled leaves fast unfolding, while underneath the spotted twin- leaves of a few plants of Adder's-Tongue bore the stalks that held each its single yellow flower. "While we were watching for Spring on the hill-tops, she has crept in by the waterways and entrenched her forces like a good commander, and yet as often as she does it, we are always surprised," I said; but my companion had again disappeared. Yes, and before one can half realize the coming of IO THE COMING OF SPRING Spring, the flower procession is upon us and march- ing by, music and all. Of course the memory of it remains, and often gives us back what we did not visualize at the time. It is then that the camera comes to our aid, — that silent companion whose eye translates the doings of nature truth- fully, without gossip, yet always in an indulgent spirit — being in itself a lesser magician, bringing the frolicking squirrel, the brooding bird and the delicate traceries of flower and fern within the very glow of the study fireside, yet leaving them unmo- lested in their haunts. One day I had found a plant of Blue Fringed Gentian in a place where before it was unknown. I thought, "If I pick the flowers they will close, and, being an annual, the place will know the wanderer no more. I will take its portrait for my photo -herbarium." Then when I had left the place and it was too late, I fell to wondering what other stray plants might have been its com- panions in the sodden meadow where the bog moss was ankle deep, for I had seen only the Gentian. The answer to my thoughts flashed back next day from the developed plate, where I found Forget-me-nots, Grass of Parnassus, three kinds THE COMING OF SPRING II of Violet leaves, with Ladies' Tresses, Moonwort, and Crested Shield Ferns, all grouped around the Gentian ! Time o' Year whistled from far up the lane, and as I pulled myself back to the road a small branch struck me lightly across the face. It was a spray of Spice Bush thick with its yellow - stamened flowers, that, coming upon bare twigs, remind one strongly of stunted Witch Hazel bloom. I stooped to free my skirt from Catbrier thorns, and glanced back- ward to where the sun shone full upon the sunken strip of cleared land that caught the brook's overflow. There glistened golden tufts of Marsh Marigold, the first true pledge of the sun to the marshes even as the Dandelion is to the fields. Again Time o' Year whistled, and Nell left browsing to fall into a reluctant trot as we went on to join him. He was sitting on a chestnut stump, half a mile further up the lane. Motioning me to tie Nell to some bars at the entrance to the 12 THE COMING OF SPRING pasture on the opposite side, he began to scramble through the underbrush toward the woods. Cat- brier again, coils and ropes of it, — surely the Magician was the inventor of barbed wire and protected much of his property with it before man wore tearable clothes! Catbrier helps to keep the balance even now in woodland economy. The rabbit may run under where the fox meets a barrier, the ruffed grouse can slip safely to shelter, while the hawk, that dropped too boldly, is arguing with the hooked thorns that pluck tufts of his feathers to rags, or sometimes hold him altogether a prisoner, until his lifeless wings flap to and fro in the wind like a scarecrow. Once free of wayside underbrush we entered a region of Hemlocks, Oaks mingled with other forest trees, and rich leaf -mould, ankle deep, and crusted by the unchanged leaves of last year's shedding, made an elastic footing. Straightway we were greeted by a single cluster of white Hepaticas. "Snow Flowers, I call these," said Time o' Year, gaining more precise speech. "I 've often found them, when the sun 's come out hot the end of March, in little thawed places in front of rocks when the snow was lying thick on the THE COMING OF SPRING 13 north side. It 's best to allers look on the south side of things, specially this time o' year." Much of the older growth had been cut away several seasons before, and a maze of dead branches, left where the trunks had been trimmed, made progress very slow. Ledge rocks as well as mossy boulders protruded everywhere, and now and then a hidden spring trickled down drop by drop, its course being revealed by the greenness of the moss. In one such spot were a few bunches of the pure white fragile -petaled Bloodroot, the palmate leaves having hardly loosed their hold upon the flower - stalks that pushed up between. Wood Anemones nodded close by, and in the shallow earth on a rock ledge perched the resetted leaves of early Saxi- frage, with some scattering flower-stalks. Nothing as yet in abundance, but promise everywhere. On went Time o' Year without speaking un- til, leading straight through the sharp breastworks of a great fallen hemlock, from whose branches hung the old nest of a parula warbler, like a shred of southern moss blown to northern woods, he halted. Kneeling, he brushed away the leaves and twigs from the ground before him. Beneath them was a thick mat of leathery leaves ; some dark green and bronze, others delicately veined. Vine- THE COMING OF SPRING like branches trailed from the mass, and here and there nestled the clustering Arbutus flowers that breathe the first wood incense of the year. This truly is a blossom that must be visited in its haunts to be known save by name. Torn up and bunched in nosegays, it loses the most delicate quality of its perfume and all the char- acteristics of its growth. I also knelt and buried my face in the woodland bouquet, and when I looked up Time o' Year was watching me and wore his smile from afar off ; then we each perched on a stump and continued to gaze until an ovenbird broke the reverie with his call. "Does it always bloom as early as this ? " I asked, after I had looked and sniffed to my heart's content. "You can never say just when, about posies," answered Time o' Year, deliberately. "Some years one kind is first and then another. I us' ter allow that Skunk Cabbages led off, but one time we had THE COMING OF SPRING a warm Feb'ury and that started 'em up rash- like ; then along in early March it froze so hard it nearly killed the 'coons in their holes, and be- fore those cabbages got their courage and their RED WAKE ROBIN blood up again, Arbutus was out, and Wake Robins and Shadbush, and a different sort o' Violet for every finger on your hand! You see, it depends on the kind o' season we get and the way things lie to the sun, beside the bent of their own natures. "Take birds, now, and they come up to time 1 6 THE COMING OF SPRING likelier. The swallows have n't missed their week, the last in April, for coming to my old barn on the hill, not since I can remember. But then they can move themselves and reckon things out a bit while the posies have to sit still until the sun calls them above ground. They jest do as they 're told and don't hustle and worry. That 's why I think they 're so restin' to brood on ; but bless yer, it stands to reason that they must come variable and uncertain, specially at this time o' year." "Now, here 's red Wake Robin," he continued, leading me a few yards back to where a low spot made a division between two hills. "On the west and north side of the woods you need n't look for it till May, when we get the big white kind over on the hill - slope above the bridge. Then the Jacks - in - the - Pulpit and the Wild Ginger are hustlin', along with Solomon's Seals, Bellwort, and Blue -flags in the wet places, and the Red -bells have most driven the Saxifrage off the rocky places. Now only the south medder 's showin' life and the north 's as bare as yer hand." There was the handsome but evil -scented Wake Robin, surely enough, and more Bloodroot, while the lily -leaved stalks and feathery flowers of the False Solomon's Seal were foreshadowed only by THE COMING OF SPRING thick green wands that everywhere pierced the earth of the moist copse. I ventured to ask Time o' Year where he had learned the accepted popular names of so many of the flowers. For almost all rural nomenclature is indefinite to the verge of confu- sion, and Red-bell, a local name for Red Columbine or Aquilegta Canadensis, was his only slip. Hesitating at first, his usual habit, he said: "A piece back, it might be ten years, a schoolma'am came to stop over our way for her health. Our doc- tor, the old one that 's dead now and has that stone arch up in the hill buryin' ground, told her to quit medicine and get outdoors, which she did ; and likin' flow- ers and lookin' like — that is, favorin' some one I onct knew, I showed her what _ 1 8 THE COMING OF SPRING I could. She told me some names that I could n't recollect and did n't want to, and when I told her so she laughed, and learned me others that had sense in 'em. "When she went away she left me her study - book with 'em all marked out plain in red ink, so I should n't forget. I 've always hoped maybe she 'd come again ! " Here was a revelation ! Most people thought Time o' Year half-witted, from his silence. Who had ever heard him speak so much before ? But as I turned to ask another question, he rose, and quickly disappeared in the direction opposite to which we had come to the wood. The warmth of the sun suggested returning to the highway by the old logging road skirting the southern slope of the woods, and through the south meadows that Time o' Year had said were showing signs of life, rather than by the barren lane. As I worked my way back to the bars where Nell was tied and scanned the ground closely, there were signs of growth on every side, but held in abeyance as if waiting a signal. I touched the earth where the fists of sturdy Cinnamon Fern were striving to push through ; it was dry and hard. "Rain, rain, rain!" peeped the marsh frogs from below, as a cloud crossed the sun. THE COMING OF SPRING IQ True, I thought, Spring will not shake her garments to the breeze and dance and sing in full abandonment without her baptism. Earth and sun are ready, but water must complete the creative trio. But where was Nell ? There were the bars, with only the neck strap tethered to them. "Goose," I said to myself as I looked, "you were so excited by the prospects of finding Arbutus that you simply noosed Nell instead of pulling the strap through the bit. If you have to walk home and find your very best camera sprinkled in sections along the way you will have no one but yourself to blame!" But Nell had merely freed herself, in resentment at being tied instead of wholly trusted, and was grazing along a little beyond the turn, looking over her shoulder every few minutes in the direction where I had disappeared. The chaise and its con- tents were right side up, and upon the seat lay a single sprig of Arbutus, a wand of blossoming Shadbush, and two exquisitely spotted brook trout resting on a few dry beech leaves. How had the old man placed them there? "Well done," I said to Nell, rubbing her nose with my cheek. "Time o' Year approves of us and believes that we are honest folk, so he has 20 THE COMING OF SPRING left a sign and given us the freedom of his coun- try. Do you know what that means for us, Nell, this coming to find the flowers in their homes? "It means days in wood and meadow, by river and wayside, from the sea gardens up through Lone- town to the glen. It means sunburn and thunder showers, freckles, brier scratches, nettle stings and mosquito bites, — but oh, such deep sleep in the nights that follow those days! And, Nell, we must come often now; we must visit these unspoiled places week by week while yet we may, for only here can we find the natural haunts of things. Be- fore axe, plow and quarry drill drive us out we will, instead of plucking and uprooting, make pic- tures of all this loveliness — wind and weather aid- ing," I added humbly, for the image of a swallow on the wing is not more impossible to capture than that of a pendulous flower when the wind is abroad. Nell only whinnied and sniffed the breeze, yet surely the most intelligent sympathy is that which does not divert one's thoughts or jar a happy mood; so we turned in our tracks and began our zigzag return through the south meadows to the high- way. Presently the brush grew thinner and the sun filtered steadily through it. A startled whippoor- THE COMING OF SPRING 21 will, who had been sleeping almost as close to a branch as the bark itself, suddenly divided himself from his perch, and, unmindful of the early hour, gave his weird cry many times. Nell stopped short, in astonishment. Surely this was the time of first things; a day of beginnings! The whippoorwilPs cry was startling, and as my eyes followed the bat -like downward swoop with which he disappeared in the shadows, they rested on the first flower landscape of the year. Stretching backward from the open toward the young growth of saplings was a glade starred by the delicate Spring Beauty, whose rose -penciled white petals open freely to the sun, but furl on being picked almost as quickly as the leaves of the Sensi- tive Plant. Here was a flower of itself inconspicu- ous, yet when massed in its haunts the very eye of the landscape. What a region for Violets! Dry woods, moist woods, hillside and meadow, furnish food and lodg- ing for a dozen members of that shy family which never trusts its secrets to anything but the earth, many species burrowing unopened and independent flower-buds into the ground itself to ripen seed and plant it in strict seclusion. The first-born of all, the little Blue Palmate 22 THE COMING OF SPRING Violet, was already wide awake and smiling, and the three Whites were sending out a few stray flow- ers to try if the air was warm enough to stir the blue blood in their veins. The smallest of these, Blanda, is our only native Violet that has a sugges- tion of perfume other than the pungent birch odor shared alike by Violets and Pansies. The Canada Violet is the tallest of the trio, but its blossoms are less distinctly white and sometimes might be mis- taken for common Blue Violets gone pale, while the Lance-leaved has stiffness for a characteristic; stiff, narrow leaves and a way of holding its bearded purple -veined petals primly erect. A little later and the Bird's-Foot Violet, of rich color and finely cut leaves, will be on the hillside, creeping toward the drier side of the woods, where lives its downy yellow cousin, with straggling, leafy stalks and flowers the color of Celandine. In the lower springy woods, between old logs and mossy stones, the paler Smooth Yellow Violet will greet May -day under the shade of giant Jack -in -the - Pulpits and have for company the strange Wild Ginger blossoms that spend their brief existence ear to earth, as if listening for a footstep. In short, one might talk a day away about the tribe of Violet and not be done with it. No THE COMING OF SPRING other familiar plant of the near-by woods and fields wears such diversity of leaf -shapes, the leaf -type so often overshading that of the flower as to give the name and identify the plant after the bloom- ing has passed. The old road, being of decay- ing slabs ides , made it necessary for me to lead Nell, as it was too full of pit- falls for even that clever four- foot. What was that yonder, in a second lightly shaded place, sloping southward like the haunt of the Spring Beauty? Maidenhair Ferns breaking the ground ? No; a more sturdy shaft, growing upward, but not yet expanded. Ah, one leaf reveals it all! In a few weeks, two or three at most, the soft green umbrellas of the Mandrake or May Apple will be sheltering each its white -capped flower from sun and rain, as it takes its place in the great spring flower -market of outdoors. 24 THE COMING OF SPRING Ah, for the chance to sit wide-eyed in that mar- ket place and watch the procession enter! To-day come the heralds and outriders and the heart beats high with expectancy, yet, plan as one may, one's dealings with the god Outdoors are always uncer- tain. In this itself lies no small fascination. To-day we have met Spring as she timidly enters by the valleys. If a few weeks pass before Nell and I can return to Time o' Year's woods, Spring will have shown herself bravely on the hilltops and be waving her green banners from every nook that holds a thimbleful of soil from which she can raise her standard of fertility; for every ambitious rock- cleft manages to hold a leaf or two in middle May. That is the time when the early and the late flowers meet each other and salute, one advancing, the other retreating, through the company of con- servative intermediates. Then while we must search carefully in moist woods for Dwarf Ginseng, Trientalis, Baneberry, Sarsaparilla, Wintergreen, Me- deola and Mitrewort, other flowers are warming the soft green of the open landscape with splashes of color. Then it is that the Columbine begins its reign of fire among the granite rocks of old hillside pas- tures, and the gorgeous Painted Cup carries the THE COMING OF SPRING same color scheme across wet meadows under the very eye of the sun. This last is a misnamed flower that must be known in its haunts, where its darting tongues of flame outblaze even the autumn Cardinal Flower. It is not a cup -shaped flower, and the color is not in the bloom itself, which is pale yellow and akin to Wood Betony, but in the red stem -leaves that mingle with the blossoms. This flower is a thing of the landscape. A single stalk is merely curious ; a meadow aflame with it is like fire creeping among autumn grasses. So is it also with the delicate, pale purple, five- petaled flower of the Wild Geranium. A single stalk is often ragged, showing buds and overblown blos- soms at once ; but its color is most striking when seen in masses in open fields or along the lighter wood edges, where it remains in perfection well into June. In fact, these three 26 THE COMING OF SPRING flowers identify themselves so thoroughly with the season's landscape that if some random questioner asks, "What was that bank of scarlet that I saw to-day among the rocks as I came on in the train? " it is perfectly safe to answer "Columbines." "And the great patch of the same color in a low pasture ? " "Painted Cup." "There were also masses of flowers of a pecu- liar lilac shade that grew in broad waves along the field edges and in the gullies beside the track. I could see the color but not the shape. They were not Violets, nor Iris, but something slender that swayed in the grass." "Wild Geraniums." The Pink Azalea, or Pinxter- flower, as it is known locally, is a shrub of May that carries a rosy warmth of color among gray rocks and up bare hill- sides until it is an inseparable part of the Spring landscape. Akin to the Mountain Laurel and Great Rose Bay or Rhododendron, and forerunner of them, it is found in equal beauty growing along shady wood roads and in clearings where first the logger and then the charcoal-burner have not left even a sapling. Blush -white or pink in the shade, in the open THE COMING OF SPRING 27 it deepens in the bud through carmine almost to crimson, and is called red by the undiscriminating, though it never takes the orange, yellow and scar- let tints of the Flame Azalea of the Pennsylvania and Carolina mountains. While among flowers the first comers are pale, the Magician soon blends brilliant colors for his work, though he paints less broadly with them than in summer and autumn. As regards the yel- low and white flowers of the landscape, it is well to answer questions with greater caution; there are so many of the Magician's treasures in sight at this season, and mere color is not always rightly caught in a swift glance. Was it a bed among rocks of much -cleft silver - green foliage, set with flower-sprays of two -pointed white and yellow bloom that might be pairs of elfin trousers hung out to bleach? Then you may say they were Dutchman's Breeches. Wood and Rue Anemones both make patches of light in shady places, but the Rue is less brilliantly white, owing to the mixture of the foliage with the blooms, while the Wood variety holds its head well above its leaves, even though it hangs it down in a discouraged fashion at the approach of night or during cloudy weather; and Bluets also look white, 28 THE COMING OF SPRING in spite of their name, when seen in the grass-like abundance common to them. The tiny two-leaved feather -flowered Maianthe- mum, a sufferer for a suitable name, and a half cousin of False Solomon's Seal, also makes a frost - like fretwork of white, in the deepest shade as well as in comparatively open places. If the white -flowering landscape herbs of Spring are confusing, the yellow ones are doubly so. Marsh Marigold tells its own name very well, almost as plainly as the chickadee, for both are in evidence at a time when they have swamp and THE COMING OF SPRING 2Q tree largely to themselves. Yellow Adder's-tongue also has a distinctive leaf and growth; but when one tries to separate at a distance the golden mazes of Buttercups, Dandelions, Squaw and Rattlesnake weeds, and the low-growing Star Grass from Yel- low Oxalis, intuition must piece out knowledge. It is a far easier task for the novice to name the flower in the hand than the flower in the land- scape. The first requires attention to detail alone, the second the comprehensiveness, the impression- ability of art. Patient Nell at last became restless, the treach- erous ribbed roadbed that had forced me to lead the way disappeared altogether, and the track became an endless puddle. I did not complain, however, because at this juncture I found the first hyla; or rather the little peeping frog, surnamed Pickering, discovered me by landing on my knee in the course of a miscalculated leap. I held him in my hand for a moment, looking with something akin to awe at the throbbings of the almost transparent body, whose penetrating voice is the first assurance of the coming of Spring. Once again upon the windswept highway, the signs of growth lessened. In a few moist spots the 3O THE COMING OF SPRING vigorous Cinnamon Fern and others of its family were emerging from their woolly winter wraps. Light clouds continually veiled the sun and prom- ised a shower, the password that alone could fling wide the door for Spring's entrance. Soon again the landscape barrenness was broken. From across a narrow railway curve waved white plumes of Shadbush, preceding the downy leaves on the leaden -hued stalks. Obeying an impulse, I gathered an armful of this April snow that fell over my shoulders in soft .flakes even as I brought it back to fasten some twigs on Nell's collar and use the rest for a lap- robe. The clouds were now gathering fast, and loneli- ness seemed to come with them. It takes either health and wildly good spirits, or else philosophy, to make a solitary trip in the woods endurable. The former are preferable as companions, because outdoor philosophy is possible only in a rather argu- mentative mood, which is at variance with the physical exhilaration and mental calm that we seek in fresh air. But out in the open it is different, for when the sun shines there is not a shadow to hide even the ghost of loneliness. A drop of rain fell on my nose; another, and THE COMING OF SPRING 31 the shower was upon us. The chaise top and boot have saved me many a wetting. In fact, a wise horse and that democratic vehicle that usually suffers the indignity of the name of "buggy," corrupted from the East Indian word for gig, are indispensable companions for a woman who visits the flowers in their haunts, or goes hunting with a camera. The wonder of the change since early morning! A keen ear might have heard the leaves unfurl and the wrappings drop from the various catkins, while the unalloyed aroma of the earth arose with the vapor of the steaming pastures. At home, with Nell safely stabled and fed, I stood on the porch watching the water course down the triple trunk of a slender Black Birch. Sud- denly the rain ceased and the sun rent the clouds in hot haste. As if at this signal the Magician raised his staff, the adhesive winter wrappings melted, and the Birch tree was enveloped in a golden glory of yellow -stamened tassels! The season offered many golden days, and wood and field overflowed with ferns and flowers, but the first is the longest remembered; the day that began and ended in sunlight, with the wetting of an April shower between, the day when Nell and I, 32 THE COMING OF SPRING going out to see the coming of Spring, met Time o' Year in the lane, and the master on his return from his day among paved ways gratefully ate the trout for his supper, with a sprig of Arbutus in his buttonhole. Then at twilight we stood under the Birch's golden shower rejoicing; more precious, this treas- ure, than Hesperus' apples, for no one would dis- pute its possession with us save the bees ! II ALONG THE WATER- WAYS [ME O' YEAR spends half his days among the waterways, that begin afar off in quickening veins of moisture among the rocky hill-woods, thread their way unknown, save for the tell- tale flowers that follow, across many meadows, and join forces to rush into the mill-pond above the forge; after this they sepa- rate again, and go their several ways as full-fledged streams. Time o' Year has chosen the most capricious among these for his following — a waterway that changes its course every hundred yards or so. Now fairly broad and smooth, though inhospitable to traffic, like so many New England streams, it sud- denly drops rushing into a ravine cut by centuries of its passing, where fissured rocks and pot-holes tell of its work. Then, hesitating in pond-like complacency every little while, it quiets to a usual mill-stream for the eight -miles' course before, the c 33 34 ALONG THE WATERWAYS salt entering its blood, it disappears among the marshes, being drawn seaward with tide -water. If you ask Time o' Year what he is doing when you meet him wandering along the birches on river banks, or sitting watching the sway of the white Water Lily pads and the reflection of purple Pick- erel Weed in some quiet nook well out of the cur- rent, he will answer, "Fishing," at the same time taking a seasonable bait, — worm, grasshopper, or suchlike, from his basket, perfectly unconscious that your eyes are riveted, perhaps, on the flower of a rare Pitcher-plant, that dangles from his frayed buttonhole, telling of a long tramp through marshy, fishless places, where the ground is sphagnum -cov- ered, the haunt of the strange insect -killing Sun- dews, Arums, Water Plantains, Cranberries, Fringed Orchids, and other bog plants. Fishing ? Why should he be doubted, when rod and line and water all are there ? Even if trout should be out of season, he knows the run of every eel, bass, perch, or pike. But Time o' Year is no pot-hunter, either with rod or gun; a morsel for his own need is all he ever takes of fin, fur, or feather. No: he is listening to the river-voice that has been calling, calling, ever since it first moved on the face of seething waters, to those that have ALONG THE WATERWAYS 35 the ears to* hear. He is watching day by day, week by week, year by year, the procession that follows the waterways — flower, fern, beast and bird, and sometimes man, from the greening of the first grass - blade that tells of the dawn of Spring, until the footprints of mink and skunk in the snow alone point to where the stream lies ice -covered. To these humble followers the voice speaks through their necessity, and guides them to the warm, thinly -crusted spring-hole where they may drink. Time o' Year uses his fishing-rod as a natural shield to ward off questioning, — a commonly under- stood excuse for days spent with nature, in what otherwise would be called idleness. Have not many men, naturalists and moralists both, in all time, tried, like this childlike man, to hide their nature - ward and spiritual longings, held too sacred for casual handling, behind a slender fishing-rod ? Was it the love of fish -catching, or the voice, that led Walton from the linen-draper's, or, some say, the ironmonger's shop, to follow the water- ways ? Sportsmen still argue that he did not rank as a fisherman pure and simple, for to him a reel was a confusing implement, and he lacked the skill to fish up-stream. Did he absorb from the daintily cooked trout 36 ALONG THE WATERWAYS that he has given such careful directions for pre- paring, the cheerful, spiritual philosophy that fitted him for the friendship of Donne, and enabled him to interpret the life of Herbert ? No, it was the voice that taught him. Each year when Spring has made her entry, the errant streams, retreating to the established water- ways, resume the discourse that frost ended by a finger -touch. These waterways are the most potent social influences of wild nature, and not to know them is but half to learn the Magician's alphabet. A riverless land is a treeless, birdless country where homesickness flourishes; a motiveless waste, where the wind whirls the sand until there are no paths and no boundaries. Do you realize that, while boundless liberty is the great desire of the mind, the feet unconsciously seek for trodden paths? The waterways were the first paths cut by the Magician through primeval rock, and he still loves to linger about them. Be it April or arid August, go out into the near-by waterways; watch, listen, and follow. From the waterways, seen or invisible, are the colors irradiated that paint the landscape, and it ALONG THE WATERWAYS 37 does not take a lake or mighty river to exert a quickening influence over miles of lowlands, either by spring overflow, or by the penetration of slug- gish outlets and minute tributaries. The waterways work with a bold brush in flower- painting, and from earliest spring until late autumn the primary colors, yellow, blue, and red, flow from it. The first strongly yellow flower is the Marsh Marigold, which gilds the swamps before the Dan- delion holds its field of the cloth of gold in pastures. At this season of overflows, the near approach to stream and river is difficult; but the Marsh Mari- gold can be seen afar, and consequently is the first bright color of the landscape. Blue, tinting to purple, a royal color, comes next. New England may have rejected kings and heraldry long ago, but she still wears freely every May Fleur- de-Lys azure in or, on a green field; for the large Blue Flag, or Iris versicolor, flocks in crowds at every muddy river -edge, and spreads its regal mantle over the marshy fields. It is a peerless flower seen in its haunt when the sun shines clear. To look down among these violet -blue flowers, touched with white and gold, and veined with deep -cut purple, to watch the shadows of the deep green sword - shaped leaves quiver across them, while a trans- 38 ALONG THE WATERWAYS parent haze of color envelops the whole, is to confess the effect unpaintable. To pick the rigid stalks, topped by the crown -shaped petals, that droop and melt away after the fashion of all flowers of a day, is to acknowledge that this Iris must surely be seen in its home to be known in anything but outline. If many flowers of wood and field lose quality away from their surroundings, the herba- ceous flowers of moist lands and waterways do so in far greater degree. The Water Lilies, however, of which three va- rieties can be found within a day's drive of Lone- town, may be safely gathered, and floated in a deep bowl ; they will open and close for several successive days. But the deep green and carmine -lined leaves that enhance their beauty curl up as soon as their under surface dries. One day in late July I was searching the margin of the forge mill-pond for Lily-pads to photograph, having as yet found that morning only the half erect leaves of the yellow variety, whose bumptious flowers look more like large, leathery Buttercups than Lilies. Seeing on the opposite side of the pond a mass of the floating leaves I wanted, I worked my way around to them, only to find that they were ragged and torn, that all the flowers and ALONG THE WATERWAYS 39 buds had been wrenched off, evidently by a rake, and that many plants were entirely uprooted and drifting, ready to be washed away by the next shower. A shout from a hickory grove just above gave clue to the destroyers. A picnic was in prog- ress, of the sort that always brings disaster upon the flora and fauna of the region where it locates. Water Lilies were being fastened around the men's straw hats and at the girls' belts impartially, while the buds, with their long, rubber-like stems, were freely used as return balls to throw into the faces of the unwary. Trowels and jack-knives in the hands of women were uprooting clumps of Maiden- hair and other equally fragile Ferns, to be stowed away under the seats of wagons that stood out in the sun, while the men were engaged in trimming these same vehicles with whole bushes of the Large- leaved Laurel and yards of Ground Pine. A little apart from the others two lads were ripping a foot- wide girdle from the trunk of a magnificent old Silver Birch, the only one of its size for miles around and a well-known landmark. As I was about to call out in protest, I felt, rather than saw, a shadow cross the path. Before I could even turn, Time o' Year's voice said: "'Sh! Ye can't do nothing. They 're on town- ALONG THE WATERWAYS ship land, and township don't care. Ye 're wanting to take Pond Lilies? I know some they won't find. Come and see!" Whenever Time o' Year said, "Come and see!" an ecstatic expression of blended revelation and sat- isfaction beamed in his smile, and he seemed to quiver all over with pro- phetic eagerness. At the first step, we dis- appeared safely and wholly from view into a group of Button Bushes that margined the pond on the upper side. As we pushed our way, a delicious fragrance came from over- head, and I pulled down a branch to smell the feathery balls of bloom at nearer range. From the time of Wild Grape flowers, until the last purple cluster shrivels, the richest fragrance centers about the waterways. "What does it smell like?" I queried, half aloud. "Pa'tridge Vine, I reckon," answered Time o' ALONG THE WATERWAYS 41 Year, rubbing the flowers between his fingers, and then smelling of them as if to inhale the grade rather than the volume of the perfume. "Surely it is like Partridge Vine," I replied; "only as pervading as if bushels of the little cross - shaped white blooms were gathered in a mass. Good reason why — the two are members of the same family." "I want to know!" said Time o' Year, delight- edly. "It beats me, how blood will tell! Now, Fanton's brown mare has a way of favorin' her near front foot by lappin' it over t' other when she stands. I never saw another do so, and she 's sound as a dollar, too. Last fall a neighbor o' his'n bought a colt up York state, and pretty soon he noticed she overlapped in standin', same as Fanton's mare. Huh! he thought it must be a catchin' habit, from pasturin' alongside; but sure enough, come to find out, the colt's mother and Fanton's mare were whole sisters!" Next a space of mud and Tussock Grass, where picking the way was an absorbing task, ended my guide's comparison between the passive and active development of heredity. Near here, where the stream sometimes sluggishly meanders away from its channel, I have, at rare intervals, found the curious 42 ALONG THE WATERWAYS Golden Club in May, and the Water Arum in early June. Next we crossed a wet meadow inhabited by Monkey Flowers, with delicate light purple blos- soms, together with the striking but unsatisfactory spikes of Steeple Bush, that promise in the bud to be graceful sprays of bright pink Spirea, but end in faded fuzziness, owing to the trick that so many spiked flowers have of slowly blossoming in sec- tions. Here also the fleshy stalks and dangling flowers of two Jewel Weeds grow thick, rank and top-heavy. A bit of bog hidden from the country-side by Bush Willows must be crossed by means of fallen trees, which have lost their branches and are mol- dering to peat. Time o' Year paused, and pointed to a sturdy tuft of red -veined green leaves. It was a splendid Pitcher-plant, or rather a group of them, every pitcher-like leaf perfect, water-filled and laden with drowned insects held for its nourishment. I stood amazed, and signed to my companion to know the reason of its presence so far from any haunt where I had ever found it. "Thirty years ago it was full of 'em here," he answered. "Folks took 'em onct in a while for curiosities, or to try to grow 'em in fish -globes and ALONG THE WATERWAYS 43 jars. Still, they held their own until one time, four or five years since, a florist fellow from back of Bridgeport came out here for a load of bog moss, and spied 'em. Next thing I knew they were all rooted out, 'cept a couple of young ones, and they 're beginning to spread again, you see." Another plant that, taken from its haunt, is a curiosity destined to come to an untimely end in a fish -globe, but at home an example of the mechan- ism which the Magician can lend to plant -life, and a fine study in green and bronze tints, backed, as it was, by Bur Reeds and Cat -tail Flags. Woods again, still more completely hiding a chain 44 ALONG THE WATERWAYS of smaller ponds from the highway. Truly, Time o' Year's own waterway is infinitely varied. On the sunny edge of these woods grew bushes of white Swamp Azalea, the flowers, almost past their prime, giving a perfume more heavily sweet than that of the Button-bush. This Azalea being, like its sister, the Pinxter Flower, a shrub, its blossoms may be kept in water several days if they are picked before they fully ex- pand, which is the case with most of our native shrubs, of dry or moist lands, provided their stems are wrapped in wet cotton as soon as cut, and an additional bit taken from the stalk when it is finally placed in water. The first two ponds were close together, only divided by an old dam, which had long since fallen inward, stone by stone, and, catching the spring drift of soil, had turned to a flower-covered dyke. The near-by margin of the lower pond was fur- rowed, and the ground felt oozy to the tread for several yards above the water's edge. The oppo- site bank was abrupt and rocky, while under it the water held reflections of trees and the lazy clouds of the summer sky. Time o' Year halted, spread out his hands as if giving a blessing, and said briefly: ALONG THE WATERWAYS 45 "There 's Water Lilies." Yes, and a landscape fit to drive a flower pho- tographer mad with the impossibility of keeping the merest fragment of it, though an impressionist painter would have been filled with joy. Lilies gathered in circles where there was no current, and sturdy purple Pickerel Weed came out as far from shore as it could wade to meet these floating islands. But that which held the eye longest was a broad band of clear green foliage, thickly feath- ered with soft white, which margined the entire pond, a metallic glint, as of strands of copper wire, showing here and there as if it bound the mass together. The flower was the familiar Lizard's Tail, with its delicately spiked white flowers and heart-shaped leaves, both of which droop on being gathered. The copper wire was Dodder, a leafless parasite, with small white flowers and berries, which lives upon the plants of waterways. In the hand, nei- ther plant was of conspicuous appearance, but growing in rank luxuriance in such a haunt, the effect was almost tropical. I know of no other like bit of picturesqueness hereabout, except where, at the end of a long drive across country, I once came upon the pale yellow native Lotus growing 46 ALONG THE WATERWAYS in such rich profusion in Lake Wacabuc that a boat could barely push its way among the tangled pads of leaves, buds, flowers and seed -pods, oddly shaped like the nozzle of a watering pot. It was a sight to make one for the time forget New Eng- land's rocky hills and cobble -strewn pastures. But even among these much beauty goes a-begging, and is passed by unheeded, because it is too near home to be thought worth seeking out and cherish- ing. People make coaching tours the country over for love of scenery who do not know of the near-by flower landscapes, or of the waterways that sur- round their very homes, except as drinking places for the cattle in the pastures. "Come up to the other pond," said Time o' Year, breaking my reverie at the right moment; for the picknickers, whom we had left behind, were jangling a dinner-bell to collect their scattered com- pany, and the howls and cat -calls that sounded by way of response were jarring. "If they 'd seen your trick-box nothing would have saved yer. You Jd have had to take 'em all, sure, 'nless you went and sat in the middle o' the pond," chuckled Time o' Year, wickedly laughing as he saw me huddle my camera up tight in its waterproof cover at the bare thought. ALONG THE WATERWAYS 47 "The other pond's different — deeper, steeper banks, more bushed up. I always thought this one was just a low meadow not so long ago. The bottom 's soft, and there is n't a hole in it deep 'nough to hold a two -pound pickerel. King- fishers don't like to dive in it neither, and that 's a sure sign of shallow water and soft bottom. But green herons like it here, and quawks and great blue cranes, but they 're more in the frogging line o' business." A foot-path coming from the woods followed the margin of the second pond at the distance of a yard or so, winding and curving around the minia- ture bays and inlets until ten feet of headway meant thirty of meanderings. This is one of the illusions by which the waterways beguile us into thinking, as we follow the voice that travels on before, that we are covering vast areas; whereas, after wander- ing about a whole morning, discovering each mo- ment new treasures of the eye and ear, we find that we have progressed only a mile or so, measuring by the direction of the straight highroad. Between the path and the pond -edge shot up stiff plants of the Arrowhead, with their arum -like leaves and spikes of fragile, white, tripetaled flow- ers, quite as pleasing to the eye as many of the ALONG THE WATERWAYS smaller Orchids. These also are flowers to rejoice over when seen in their perfection — with clear water for a background, and splendid dragon - flies darting over them; but when gathered soon are but sad little wrecks, with curled, blackened leaves and drooping blossoms, like so many of the frailer flowers of the waterways, literally melting to tears on leaving home. All about this upper pond crowded a half woody growth, which arched its long, slender branches over the water until they trailed in it, after the fashion of vines. Upon the wand- like stems of the near-by shrubs I could see, set in the axils of the leaves, the groups of small, pink -purple flow- ers, whose thin, narrow petals and long stamens gave the stalks a rosy, fringed appearance. Where a vigorous stalk bent low enough to reach the mud beneath the water a mass of roots could be seen spreading from it, and grasping a firm hold, while the stem of a new plant started upward from these roots. ALONG THE WATERWAYS 49 This slender-stemmed shrub was the Swamp Loosestrife, or Willow Herb, — though Walking Loosestrife would, I think, be rather a better name for it, as it strides about our Connecticut ponds and river banks with such rapidity that it surely wears the seven-league boots of plant land! A common plant? Yes, for our own home mill- pond is hedged with it, though never had I found a pond so completely possessed by it as this. But how few there are who seem to know it by name, or to remember ever having seen it in its haunts! Of the many guides to flowers ALONG THE WATERWAYS which, during the past few years, have held out their hands to aid and instruct the novice, which one has mentioned it ? Yet, for all this, it is not a land- scape flower that may be overlooked, even though the value is more in the leaf than in the bloom. From Spring to Midsummer its foliage wears succes- sively three shades of green, ranging from sap through clear emerald to verd antique. Its blossoming time runs all through July and August, and even before its flowers drop away a mel- low tint overspreads the foli- age, — yellow, pink and deep maroon all flicker and come and go among the bending withes, until, as summer passes, the pond -edges are wreathed in the same colors of flame that Sam- phire spreads over the salt marshes, Low Bush Blackberries bring to the rocky pastures, Sumacs to the hill- sides, and Virginia Creeper, festooning over old walls, trails by the wayside. The sun was very bright upon the water, and ALONG THE WATERWAYS 51 as Time o' Year turned toward the wood again to rest his dazzled eyes, the third perfume of the day played with my nostrils, — a sort of blending of the odors of Button -bush and Swamp Azalea, yet more clearly defined and spicy than either, and bearing the suggestion of damp leaves with it. Another whiff, and my nose decided that the perfume was Clethra or White Alder, as it is often called, though nowhere could my eyes discover it. "A lot o' Sweet Pepper - bushes on ahead," said Time o' Year, who was in front of me. "Fine ones, too, well flowered and in a likely spot, not too much sun nor too much damp, and screened from the northwest wind, which does a lot of harm, driv- ing along the ponds and rivers some Springs, after things have started. I ALONG THE WATERWAYS guess you '11 find Pepper -bush just right this time 'o year." Clethra, White Alder, or Sweet Pepper-bush (so-called from seed -pods that resemble pepper- corns), the flower is one and the same; no name, however invented, could half describe the sugges- tive fragrance, and no chemist could ever counter- feit it. Clethra is too often a bush defaced by much dead wood and shabby seed -pods, but this group was of even, young, fresh growth, coming from old stumps, while the flower sprays rose erect above the leaves, in shape like long candle flames. A horse neighed at the pic- nic ground, and Nell, tethered down the highway, answered and added an impatient whinny on her own account. So once again I parted company with Time o' Year, who stood a moment smiling at me as I packed away my plate - holders safe from light. Then, picking up his eter- ALONG THE WATERWAYS 53 nal fishing-rod from some mysterious hiding-place, he trudged off up the pond path, whistling softly to himself in a startled sort of way, like a bird that, after the silent time, tries his voice in Au- tumn, and seems surprised at its sound. Nell whinnied again when she caught sight of me, this time contentedly tossing her head to signify that it was time to change bit and bridle for her lunch -bag. At the same instant my day's companion, who, owing to a dainty gown and flowery hat, had preferred not to risk damage by thorn and briar, and had decided to stay in the shade reading "The Kentucky Cardinal" (I would not allow her a less admirable book for the day's outing) , turned the last leaf, leaned back against the bank of Hay- Scented Ferns, and stretching lux- uriously, said: "It has been a simply perfect morning. But, oh! how hungry I am!" Telling Nellie to be patient a little longer, we drove down the road a mile or so, until we joined the river again, almost opposite Time o' Year's cabin. Here the way was narrow, well shaded, and cut like a step in the edge of a wall of rocky woodland, which rose eastward of the river valley. Rocks also separated the road from the river, which 54 ALONG THE WATERWAYS at this point rushed along, its rock -bed full of pot- holes, twenty feet below. Between road and river were some old buildings, which in their day had been grist-, saw-, and cider-mills. Two were so crumbled that vines grew through the floors, and the phcebe's nests of many generations strewed the beams. The third, the cider -mill, still bore traces of use. Moldy straw and dried apple -skins hung from the clumsy press, while the rude platform, under the vines and trees in full view of the river where Tree -bridge spanned it, offered an ideal resting place. So there we halted. A flowering Clematis vine climbed up from the bank by way of some tall Alders, and leaning over, I saw at the same glance a gorgeous company of Cardinal Flowers, doubled by their reflection in the water. A rock had protected their roots from freshets, and they stood there like a company of silent torch -bearers, their lights but newly lit, and likely to burn a month or more before extinguish- ment, save only this difference, that a pine-knot, torch, or a candle, burns from the top downward, while the flower- flame creeps upward and shows its last gleam from the stalk's top. When the Cardinal Flower grows among the tangles of low meadows or by muddy ponds where ALONG THE WATERWAYS 55 it is meshed by Tear-Thumb, Goose -Grass, Dodder, or the persistent Hog Peanut, we see its wonderful color, but lose its identity of form. Here, back- grounded by clear-cut rock, it stood out in perfect and untroubled stateliness. Two of its companions along the waterways, which form with it a sort of floral tricolor, are also seen in greater beauty when they grow massed along the course of running streams, than where a profusion of rank marsh growth overpowers them. These are the flesh - white Turtle -Head and the purple Closed Gentian, flower of mystery, that keeps its lips tight closed upon whatever secrets it possesses. The Turtle -Head was already in bloom, for it usually keeps pace with the Cardinal Flower. The Closed Gentian not showing its intensely opaque purple flowers until middle August, loses them before its companions are out of bloom. Farther down the road, where a lane turns off over a low -set bridge into a wood lot, there flowers each year a patch of Closed Gentian, such as one seldom sees now within reach of travelled roads. Exactly where it is I will not tell, though I may lead you there some day. I guard its haunt as Time o' Year guards his Arbutus. Within a space of a scant dozen feet, deep- 56 ALONG THE WATERWAYS rooted in wet soil, and screened from the lane by the end of the bridge, the straight stalks of the Closed Gentian, so overgrown by good nourish- ment as to be almost vine -like, can be counted by the dozens. This flower is of perennial habit of growth, and therefore, once established, is more true to its haunts than the sun -loving blue Fringed Gentian, which is an annual, dependent upon seed alone for its continuance in the place where we find it, and sought with eagerness from this very elusiveness. The locusts droned away, Nell nodded into her feed-bag, and we sat silently watching the bees, that were helping themselves to a peach that was beyond our capacity, and the ants who came on sweet errands, and who had, by their passing year by year to and fro from the press, worn a little track in the soft boards. " Do cover up that ant - walk with a branch or something," said Flower Hat. "I don't think I like to watch ants; they are so industrious and virtuous that, on a day like this, they seem a sort of moral reproach to one. Oh, look!" At that moment a yellow swallow-tail butterfly drove the bee from the peach, while a cloud of ALONG THE WATERWAYS 57 the brick -red milkweed monarchs hovered over a jungle of their favorite flowers just beyond the mill. The sun lay many hours to the west of noon before we left our shelter. I sat leaning back against the one-time straw rack, and dreamily wove together thoughts of all the other lovely outdoor days that were brought back by the picture now before me. The river -voice murmured clearly as it passed between the rocks, and I idly wondered how long it would take the current now flowing by in cool shade to reach and spread among the open marshes near the sea, — tropical gardens which, at that season and hour, would give off visible and blinding rays of heat. My companions were both sleeping. How strangely sleep relaxes characteristics that will- power gives to the faces both of man and of beast. Flower Hat was — but no! I'll not say it. She may read this, which Nell will hardly do. Nell, who, on the road, would pass for ten instead of twenty, had shaken off her feed -bag and now stood with closed eyes. Her somewhat whiskery chin dropped in a foolish way, partly showing her lower teeth, while her ears, usually so pert and mobile, had lost nerve and direction •, so that she appeared 58 ALONG THE WATERWAYS to be in the last of the seven ages of a horse, sans everything but sleep, I laughed aloud. A flowery hat was straightened, and a far-away voice said, "Oh, I 'm wide awake. I 've heard every word you said, but I 'm too comfortable to answer." Which statement, as I had not spoken, was perfectly true. Then once more my thoughts joined with the river, and followed it down to its sea -gardens. The day before I had looked for flowers in the marshes threaded by hybrid watercourses, half creek, half river, where the salt relish stimulates other con- ditions of growth and different colorings. It had been a good morning for going to the marsh lands. The sky was overcast, the wind, fresh and east- erly, had driven the mosquitoes from the wet -bot- tomed salt meadows back to the bracken thickets. The 'tide was low, so that the feathery edging of lilac Sea Lavender that bounded the salt haying grounds was reachable. Where the coarse grass was short, and the sunken tide -water had left a sort of metallic luster on the mud, grew the dwarfed Seaside Gerardia, its flowers purple -pink, its shape a minute counterpart of its sisters of wood and upland meadows. There, too, ALONG THE WATERWAYS 59 growing in rosettes, the leaves coming from a central root, blushed the rose-pink, wheel-shaped flowers of the American Centaury or Sabbatia, so bright in hue that the near-by Salt Marsh Fleabane looked dingy and overblown by contrast, while, acting as a foil to both of these, the stiff, inflated leaf- less stems of Glass - wort covered the ground with the translucent green such as we find in seaweeds. The course of every tide -ditch was outlined by Cat -tail Flags, rich with their brown batons, which seem to give them juris- diction in the world of reeds. But the Rose Mallow is in Summer the landscape flower of the marshes, inseparable from the scene from late July until early Autumn days give precedence to yellows and pur- ples, preparing the eye for Autumn leaf colors. All along the eastern coast, wherever water courses, this Mallow, often higher than the height 60 ALONG THE WATERWAYS of the tallest man, rears its hollow stems, from a perennial rootstock, and opens its flowers wide as a hand's breadth. They range in color, like the pink Azalea, from blush -white through deep rose to almost crimson in the unopened bud. Far up rivers and by inland lakes, wherever a salty flavor tempts it, the Mallow flourishes; and though it is water -loving, if a place where it is firmly fixed is drained, and the conditions changed, it will still live bravely on, though smaller and paler. In the hand, Rose Mallow is a coarse flower, perfect in color only on its first morning of blooming. Its leaves are rough and quick to lose their shape, and every stalk is made ragged by faded blooms and rough seed-pods. As it grows, each tint of color, from palest to deepest, reflects among the strong leaf shadows, and the whole, thrown in relief by a background of deep green reeds, is something to seek and gaze upon. Then we may keep its color memory alone, though its outlines may be treasured with the aid of the cam- era's eye ; for, like the field of Fleur-de-Lys, it is unpaintable by human hands. Are we not over- bold when we try to reproduce in detail by direct color, that perfection of flower beauty born of a combination of its natural tint, atmosphere, reflec- w^ i ALONG THE WATERWAYS 6 1 tions, and the veiling influence of the vision that transmits it to the brain ? Those who do not really know a flower in its home, as one knows the varying expressions of the eyes of a beloved one, clamor for a colored counter- part, no matter how crude. But those who really know, prefer the black and white suggestion of the scene, and leave the rest to memory. To paint the wild flowers as their lovers see them growing, or a child's face as its mother knows it, requires the gift of heaven -born genius. The sultriness left the air, and a refreshing breeze that blew down the river -glen from the northwest suggested a thunder shower back among the hills. Flower Hat sprang up and danced a few jig steps "to wake up her feet," she said, "which had been asleep, though she had not." Nell awoke with a snort, and then sneezed; we hastened to collect our traps and pack them away, after watering the pony somewhat inefficiently with a tin box as a pail, which, being shallow, necessitated eight trips down to the river. Why did we not take the mare to the water instead of the reverse ? Because at my last attempt, presum- ing on the privileges allowed her years, Nell, on 62 ALONG THE WATERWAYS being unharnessed, had jerked the bridle from my hands, taken a long, and — to herself — satisfactory roll in the water, and crossed to the other side! "I wonder who lived there?" queried Flower Hat, looking at the little house that stood in the narrow strip of land opposite the mill, between road and rocks. The house was evidently aban- doned, for the gate was nailed up ; but a worn grindstone stood by the well and there was a strag- gling mass of hardy old-fashioned flowers, strayed evidently from a bit of garden at the south side. As I paused, unable to answer the question, Time o' Year came along on his homeward way, his cabin being a little farther on, Reading our thoughts, he answered them, saying: "The Keeler folks lived here. Old lady died, it must be three years back. Old man last spring. All their folks gone long ago. Nothing left but the posies to mind the old place, and soon that '11 shake down, and then the posies '11 have it all to themselves. But I reckon she 'd 'a' liked it to be that way; she was always very private. There 's been many a house in Lonetown you 'd never 'a' dreamed was there, only for the posies. They 're always the last to leave." Ill "ESCAPED FROM GARDENS" ON a round hill-top, so abrupt that you might have jumped from it down to the winding river valley, stands the Lilac House. Those who built it there, long time ago, surely had keener eyes for beauty than their neighbors, for, as in the case of many remote farming hamlets, Lonetown had usually built its scattering houses in hollows, using the hills for windbreaks, its people being content to have before them no more distant prospect than a barn, a woodshed, a fowl -house, or a hayrick or two. The Lilac House might have been a watch - 64 ESCAPED FROM GARDENS tower, so well does it command a view that spreads endlessly from ridge to ridge, and follows the windings of the valley until that, too, is hill- bound. Sun and river together made a calendar of the seasons for those who looked from the small - paned windows or paused to gaze, as they slowly dipped the heavy sweep to draw water from the hillside well. In late June the sun sets at the northwestern end of the river -valley, sinking slowly between the overhanging trees that appear to screen a doorway opened to it, while by Christmas time it swings back until it seems to rest a moment, be- fore making its sudden winter exit, behind a hill that marks the river's southern limit before it turns easterly to reach the sound. I do not know who built the Lilac House, or when or how the people who reared the other stone chimneys that now stand ruined here and there for miles around, — by the sides of travelled roads, on crooked byways, or heading blind-lanes, — came to live in such lonely places, that even now, in this time of push and traffic, they are on the longest road to nowhere. The fields from which these farmers must have drawn their food, are now occupied by Goldenrod, Joe Pye, and Boneset. The pastures where the cattle grazed — fat cattle, 'THE KENILWORTH |VY THAT CLINGS ABOUT OLD 5TONE ESCAPED FROM GARDENS 65 for which the country was noted once for miles beyond Newtown — are briary wood -lots. One thing is sure: women were in the homes, and lighted fires on the hearths, the stones of which in many cases are the only things that stay to tell of them. And no matter how hard the life, these women had at least one thought beyond the boundary of woodshed, barn, and hayrick. They all loved flowers, and from this love has sprung a half wild, shy plant race, which lingers for a time, at least, about the old home site, and then, according to strength and kind, wholly outlives tra- dition, and, mingling freely with the native growths, is naturalized. These flowers were first brought from far-off homes in other countries, like the Kenilworth Ivy, which clings about stone steps. Many came from English cottage gardens and passed, in shape of seed or treasured cutting, herb, bulb, or shrub, from hand to hand, cherished both from the memories they brought and for their own worth. Now they are recognized, and have distinc- tive places; and in the botanies, written against their names, we read, "Escaped from Gardens." The Lilac House, but for some woman's love of flowers, would be nameless now, unnoticed, a thing passed by without a thought or second glance; E 66 ESCAPED FROM GARDENS for it is untenanted, windowless. Its shingles flap strangely in the wind, the woodshed doors are gone, the well-sweep, too. The sun shines through the warped siding of the barn upon the brooding swal- lows and phoebes, which have claimed it as their own for many generations. The bank wall yet remains that kept the knoll from slipping down hill ; the stone steps are in the gap, likewise the wicket gate. Time o' Year has shown me the names of its last tenants on a grim slate slab back on another hill; but the woman's hand has left a sign about the old house still better than graven sentences. The Lilac bushes once carefully set out between the foreroom windows and the porch have thriven and run riot, until the ruined house is walled by them. Straggling off, they have also crept about the outbuildings — indeed, everywhere that grass- cutting has spared them. These Lilacs also, in their turn, have brought tenants to the house once more, — robins that nest under the attic windows; a gray squirrel family, who live in a broken cup- board, using the Lilacs for ladders in frequent exits and entrances; and cheerful song sparrows, who set their nests among the gnarled roots and sing home ballads, perching on the sprays that brush the earless, voiceless house. ESCAPED FROM GARDENS 67 Then, when in middle May the Lilacs put on all their bravery of bloom in mass of amethyst - hued flowers, which by their heavy odor tell of their presence far down the highway, as well as to greedy bees that fly across -lots, voices are heard around the Lilac House, feet press the grass, and again human hands make nosegays of the flowers. It may be that the visitor is some one who knows the place as I do, who goes back each sea- son to see young Spring following the river, to sit on the hill -slope and feel the ground silence, or to stand before the embowered ruin, listening to the massive music that the bees drone out, which seems like Lilac perfume turned to sound. Or the visitor may be merely a stranger, who, driving down the road, pauses a moment through desire for a bouquet. These sturdy Lilacs have kith and kin near and far. Throughout all Lonetown no ruined chimney is without its Lilac bushes; and when Lilacs ap- pear without a trace of a habitation, if you search among the tangled undergrowth, you will surely find a heap of stones, the opening to a cellar in what seemed at first only a bank of earth, or at least the stoned margin of a well or hillside spring - hole. The Lilacs are plain to see; but what hum- 68 ESCAPED FROM GARDENS bier plants have escaped from this and other old gardens, long hid under sod like their planters, to stray away down many hillsides, or have been in the seed borne down the river valleys and lodged by water or wind to creep into wild places? Many plants, indeed, have escaped ; not only among those grown for beauty of flower, but things of use as well, pot and garden herbs, and other growths which, once let loose from gardens, make dire mischief among maturing crops and hay lands. Such as these is Orange Hawkweed, or Devil's Paint Brush. This crept in, first as a bor- der plant, easy to raise and quickly spreading into great patches, showy with red -orange bloom. Then it o'er- stepped its bounds, and, being unchecked, has run its wild career in several states, starving i ESCAPED FROM GARDENS 69 out meadow grasses by its greediness. So came and went astray Yarrow, the Ox-eye Daisy, Scotch Thistles, Elecampane, the Wormwoods, Chamomile, Tansy, and even, it is whispered, the unconquered Dandelion itself. In May, before the bushes round the Lilac House have lost their charm, other flower -children of that garden, set cornerwise between road and hill, are opening their eyes down in low, moist meadows. From deep-rooted bulbs spring tufts of leaves that hint of the Lily tribe ; from these come slender scapes of flat -topped flower -clusters, whose florets open white and full under the sun, but close at night and during cloudy weather, showing then a green striped under -side. This is the Star of Bethlehem, which flourishes, often luxuriantly, among the taller meadow grasses, giving at a short distance the effect of a field planted with white Crocuses. Sometimes whole fields will be strewn with the stars, so rank in their profusion that from the road I have more than once thought them Anemones, until the sight of some vestige of a house near by has hinted of my error. Even before this season, when Skunk Cabbages and Spice Bush share the swamp honors, when in the gardens of to-day only Snowdrops and Yellow 7O ESCAPED FROM GARDENS Daffies brave the late March air, along the runnel edge below the bank wall, and also in many sheltered places on the orchard slope, blooms the sweet White English Violet, its flowers held low above half unfurled leaves, all huddling for protection to the ground like some fragrant flowering moss. Two plants of old England's lore and literature live almost side by side on this New England hill, one carpeting the orchard, the other growing sparsely in a fence corner. One is the Wild Thyme of song and fragrant memory, waiting for summer to show its minute purple flowers in company with the various Mints and Catnip; the other Johnny- jump-up, father of modern Pansies, the magic flower of Puck called Heartsease, in legend once a White Violet, but transformed and dyed by Love, who stole its fragrance. "Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, — Before milk-white: now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it Love-in-idleness." So by a flowery way comes Shakespeare's thought to Lonetown! In early summer, when all the wild fields are white and gold with Ox-eye Daisies, Moneywort ESCAPED FROM GARDENS 71 trails its yellow coins over the orchard ground into cleared brush -land, and vies with other running weeds in further treading down the discouraged grass on the thin -soiled pastures. Summer is the flowering time of the great number of garden waifs, and through July and August a dozen kinds are locally plentiful enough to count in landscape color. Close under fences, sometimes following their line, at others gathering in great patches, grows a little plant, never more than a foot in height, with dark, bristling green leaves and flat yellow flower-tops. At a short distance it might easily be mistaken for a dwarf Goldenrod out of season, though a near view shows the florets to be of the odd, turbaned shape that marks it as a Spurge. This Cypress Spurge is one of a tribe which has a somewhat evil reputa- tation, for one member of the family is dangerous to handle, and this pretty flowering variety is poisonous to eat. Though quite conspicuous when in flower, the Spurge is an 72 ESCAPED FROM GARDENS erratic bloomer, and is more frequently seen in a merely leafy state, like the Orpine or Live -forever, its companion on rocky road banks. Every one knows that persistent plant of thick, bladder -like leaves and many names by sight, but usually by the leaf alone, for I have seen waste fields and road banks covered with it season in and out, and found perhaps only a half dozen stalks of its pink -purple flowers. In July, when cheerful Toad Flax is at its best, the steep bank following the roadside from the Lilac House down to the turnpike often wears a tint of purple-blue, — an unusual color in New England's byways before Aster time. Standing firmly rooted between stones, topping the brilliant yellow and orange Toad Flax, the Blue Bells of Scotland are ringing a midsummer call — if unheard of men, still intelligible to the myriad flying insects that swarm about the flowers at the summons. Not alone on this hillside, but everywhere about the country, you will find this most captivating flower, far away from any house site, on sandy hilltops, or quarry edges, or set in jewel -like clusters in the emerald of a pasture. So again, through a pinch of seed and a woman's care, does Old World poetry creep through New England fields, breaking their rigor. ESCAPED FROM GARDENS 73 When we have wandered over other hills and lingered about other old gardens, in late July the Lilac House calls us back again, for then when the grape-vines, clinging to the fence -pickets, have shed their spicy flowers, Bouncing Betsy comes out by the gateway and, rollicking to the roadside, quite fills the little corner with the fragrance of her wholesome pink-white flowers, with odor sugges- tive of Sweet William and border Pinks, to whose tribe Bet belongs. Of all the herbaceous plants that have escaped from gardens, Bouncing Betsy is the most con- spicuously vigorous colonist. Free from bad habits, she is sure of a welcome everywhere, whether she yields single pink-like blossoms, or in a fit of un- explainable generosity gives double flowers. "Escaped from gardens" is a term that covers many vines and bulbous growths, as well as border plants and pot herbs. As for the latter, you can- not walk a hundred yards across a low meadow or by an untrimmed road or lane, without having some one of their pungent odors rise from under foot. The simple leaves, squared stalk, lipped flowers, and aromatic scent are guide posts to the tribe of Mints, and though but half a dozen, like Bee Balm, Bergamot, etc., have color sufficient to make 74 ESCAPED FROM GARDENS them count as landscape flowers, the mint per- fume, when liberated by pressure or moisture, gives them distinctive place. Wild Marjoram, of dry, waste places, is one of these, Calamint another, and Clear -eye, a cousin of the Salvia or Scarlet Sage, a plant that claimed a corner in the garden because it yielded a sticky juice that was prized for clearing the eyes of dust. Scarlet Bee-Balm, or Oswego Tea, though really a native plant, judging from locality, owes its pres- ence hereabouts to garden care, from which it has escaped again. Then come the true Mints themselves, profuse in growth as the wildest natives, yet all escapes. Of these Spearmint takes the lead as lender of juices for sauces and cooling drinks. Being a seeker after moisture, Spearmint delights in roadside runnels, and sometimes appropriates whole lowland pastures, giving no little trouble and bringing before one practically the ancient minstrel query: " 'Rastus, if a cow feeds on mint, what does she gib, milk or mint sauce, sah?" "Neever, sah! she doan' gib neever. She gib milk julep! " From still moister soil comes one of the most valuable medicinal plants of modern as well as of ESCAPED FROM GARDENS 75 past times. In fact, it is surprising and gratifying to find how many homely herbs are now in high- est favor, for Mentha is the base of many newly compounded drugs, and from the Wintergreen leaves that Time o' Year chews assiduously for stiff bones is distilled an oil, a specific for rheumatism — at least for those whose stom- achs can stand its toxic qualities. }-^ Catmint, or Catnip, is a useful medicine too, both for man and beast, while the flavor of Summer Savory reaches the senses via the cook's, not the physician's, pre- scription, in company with Thyme, Marjoram, Sage, Bay leaves and other favorites of the kitchen bouquet; while Fennel, the seeds of which grand- mamma when young kept in her pocket hand- kerchief to chew slyly in church, and the Cara- way, always dear to cooky -loving children, both 76 ESCAPED FROM GARDENS escaped from the old home gardens to lead gypsy lives. The common blue Self -Heal of waysides belongs to this same group of garden herbs, and Wood Betony also, though its colonies have overrun moist woods and fields, until, like many another immi- grant, it outranks the less pushing natives. But useful as these herbs are, and even interesting as plants, they appeal mostly to the senses of smell and taste, the eye having little pleasure in them. Flower Hat, who to-day begged to come again with me, (having of her own choice forsworn a trailing skirt and high heels on such excursions, thereby promising to be a more serviceable com- panion), exclaimed at last: "Have n't you spent time enough grubbing up smelly weeds ? I thought that we had come out to find strayed -away flowers and haunts — picture things, you know. Here I 've been sitting for an hour against this fence until I 'm fairly bored with Bouncing Bet's society, and I know the Lilac House so well that I 'm sure to try to close one of those dismal windows that are n't there, the next time I have the nightmare. I don't object to tumble -down chimneys and old stone walls, or to ruined waterwheels and mill-dams, but I draw a line / /& ESCAPED FROM GARDENS ^^ at spending so much time looking at an empty house. Really, a minute ago those two front win- dow-openings seemed to stare at me just like blind eyes, and I felt creepy." "Were you quite broad awake ?" I asked her teasingly. "But you may possibly feel creepy, for you are sitting on an ant-hill!" Then Flower Hat grew wide awake enough, and shook her skirts and shivered, until she found that the hill, like the Lilac House, was tenantless, when she started up the road on foot, quite in a huff. By this time even Nell had had her fill of herbs, having finished a roadside bed of Spearmint, near where I had let her loose to graze. So we all, in different ways, attached ourselves once more to the chaise, and jogged along up the river road toward sunset. Presently I spied a tall, lean figure, hoe on shoulder, coming across lots, and was surprised to find as it drew nearer that it was Time o' Year himself. I never before had seen him handling any tool of greater use than a gun or a fishing-rod, although I knew by hearsay that he had retained the few acres of good ground that lay behind his cabin, when he had left the hill farm so many years before. ESCAPED FROM GARDENS "Been hoein' corn," he said, half apologetically, as we stopped to greet him. "Great year for corn. Potatoes more 'n fair, an' hay was also prime. I reckon I never saw the beat. The weather was seasonable all through. But the weeds have had good feedin', too, and it 's hoein' every day now. It 's kept me back from the river and woods a lot. I declare, to-day I felt so lonesome, I jest had to quit up -field work and go down there for a spell to cool off. Where be you goin' — up Lonetown way? "Up on the back Greenfield road," he continued, "there 's a sight o' Red Lilies that would please yer. Yer must know that big stone chimney that stands on the left after you pass the church and come this way. Yes, yer can reach it by the cross lane going back. The yard 's jest full o' Tiger Lilies, and the fence ESCAPED FROM GARDENS 79 is full o' them, and some is growin' right out o' the hearth cracks, and some walkin' down the road. Besides, there 's Red Day Lilies, the kind that ain't worth pickin', and Spotted Day Lilies, the sort that has seeds something like Blackberries, all tumbling down the steep among the stones, back o' where the house stood. I reckon no picnic folks has passed that way sence they 've been in blow, or they 'd a yanked 'em up roots and all, or otherways spoiled 'em." At this Flower Hat grew eager. This promised something tangible, at last; something to please her color -greedy eyes, perhaps also something to sketch, surely something to photograph if the breeze, deli- cious enough for driving, would hold its breath awhile. Having a direct point in view, we straightway then discovered at every turn in the road or fence corner, beauty to lure us and delay our going. Here, it was a vine of Trumpet Creeper, using an old Bell pear tree for a trellis. There, as we turned abruptly to go up a hill, full of flat resting-places, like an easy flight of stairs, we faced a giant group of Elecampane. The great rough -topped, downy - lined leaves were clean and perfect, while the stalks were topped by the golden -rayed flowers that glis- 80 ESCAPED FROM GARDENS tened in the sun with the quality of worked metal. Nell stopped short on the next flat when we ex- claimed in wonder; for after years of experience she has learned to interpret Oh's and Ah's as an equivalent for Whoa! Elecampane is often a disheveled sort of weed, a plant of waste places; but this bunch was fully six feet tall, and seemed like a traveller from a land of quicker growths than ours, that, losing its way, paused to rest in the rail -fenced corner. Outside the boundary of Lonetown, the houses have been oftentimes replaced by new buildings ad- joining thrifty acres. Then the old garden and the new are blended, and the escaping flowers of each set out in company, or else overtake one another on the road. We passed by such a farm almost as soon as we gained the hilltop. Of the old escapes, the dainty, trailing Coronilla, of Eng- lish birth, had claimed twenty feet of roadside for its vetch -like vines and rosy flower -clusters resem- bling clover -heads, the florets set crown wise, thus giving the plant its name. Then, a rod or two below, edging a tilled field, was a crowd of single Hollyhocks, pink, yellow, and red, the very same as hob-nobbed with Dahlias beside the path inside the garden; and a half mile up the road a Chinese ESCAPED FROM GARDENS 81 Honeysuckle, such as wreathed the house -porch, turned a bending tree, some fence-rails, and a heap of stones into a bower. The Honeysuckles, both the Italian with its pinkish flowers, and the yellow Chinese, are far- travelling escapes, for both, holding their berries late, when food is scarce, are bird -sown, and grow easily from seed. In fact, the endurance that plants have after their first escape depends largely upon their means of propagation. Birds scatter the seeds of all edible berry -bearers; the wind or hides of cattle the seeds of the com- posite tribe, according as to whether their vessels 82 ESCAPED FROM GARDENS are winged, hooked, or otherwise tenacious. Wash- outs, sidehill slides of earth, and streams carry the heavier seeds; then, too, many plants have several ways of spreading, both by seed, by running roots, like Bouncing Betsy and the Lilacs, or by rooting branches, like heedless Moneywort. All along the way we met single stalks of Tiger Lilies by the fences, and here and there bands of frail Red Day Lilies. One clump found lodg- ment in the corner of a thick stone wall, as if in an urn, though the house behind the wall was distinctly new, and all the other fencing was of pickets. Not far from this we came upon a tangle of the thorny -bushed little Cinnamon Rose, which is of transient color and faint fra- grance, but always found growing with yellow briar roses in old gardens. A great stone chimney then loomed up, sheltered by Privet Bushes in full flower. Prickly Ash, min- gled with a few half -dead Box Bushes, outlined a moss-grown flagged path; but no Tiger Lilies. The stones were covered by the scalloped leaves of Creep- ESCAPED FROM GARDENS 83 ing Sailor, or Kenilworth Ivy, as it is often called, and the same persistent little vine could be seen clinging to the stone heaps a long way up the road. " See the patch of splendid blue Larkspur over in that shabby field," cried Flower Hat, standing up and grasping the reins. "Did you ever before see such a mass of blue growing wild? It 's as if the sky had fallen." "It is fine, certainly," I said, crawling under the fence (which here was of bars instead of stones or rails), followed by Flower Hat, who for obvious reasons, decided to climb over. "It 's not Larkspur. It is Bugloss, orBlueweed, as they call it," I said, as I drew nearer the patch of color. "Now here again is a plain, unforced illustra- tion of a flower that must be seen in -its un- troubled haunt to be known at its best. To look at that bank of blue, it appears, as you now said, as if a bit of sky had fallen. Yes, you are improving, Flower Hat. A year ago you would have said * blue silk' instead of 'sky,' as a simile. Now pick a stalk, and you have an odd, but a rather untidy looking flower, its bright blue suppressed by the poor quality of its foliage ; in truth it comes very close to the weed limit." 84 ESCAPED FROM GARDENS "I don't know what the weed limit is," said Flower Hat. "I never could word it, somehow, though I usually know weeds when I see them. They are such ugly, homely things." "Like Peppermint and Marjoram?" I asked. "Oh, no; those are useful herbs." "Very good. Then suppose we amend Emerson, boil him down, and say that a weed is a plant which is neither useful nor beautiful." "Yes, but then how about that Orange Hawk- weed, and White Daisies and all the Goldenrods, you know? They are lovely, and yet you told me this morning that they fairly eat up good farm land." "Like many other things, it all depends upon the point of view, united to the very possible condition of having too much of a beautiful as well as of a good thing. But look, there is our chimney," I said in relief, for when Flower Hat begins to argue, illogical though she often is, I have thought at times that she would have been able by sudden strategy to corner Socrates, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus rolled into one. There was the chimney standing alone with a single Tiger Lily before the hearthstone, while half way up in a jog where the flooring must have rested a plant of Matrimony Vine or Box Thorn, with its ESCAPED FROM GARDENS purplish green flowers and slender spines, shot out a few branches, the larger ones some twenty feet or more, climbing over the back of the chimney and falling in festoons to the ground. This vine belongs to the Potato family, and may be often seen in wholly wild places, as well as near old gardens, sprawling over bank walls and when out of bloom showing oval green or deep red berries akin to those of its wild cousin, the Climbing Nightshade. The Tiger Lilies, as Time o' Year had said, were lined along the fences and gathered in groups among the stone heaps, while the Blackberry Lilies, which are really a species of Iris, covered the slope back of the garden. Such lavish and vivid color is not often equaled in a garden, for Lilies which, from their stiff growth, should be urged to run riot and break ranks, when planted in neat rows do not fill the wild na- ture - loving soul 86 ESCAPED FROM GARDENS with joy. Here the tall stalks, coming from old bulbs, were sheltered by the flowers from others of graded heights, and the whole stood out against a ground of either green Lilac, Privet or Hawthorn bushes. Even here on the edge of Lonetown the home -loving woman's hand had planted bushes of English May, which, less transient than humanity, stayed behind to whisper of her native land to the spring moon, if none else heeded. If you wish to know how far New England is bone of Old England, trace the ancestry of these plants that have "escaped from gardens"! The near slope was gay also with Orange Day and Blackberry Lilies, but these seemed pale when brought into close contrast with the barbaric black spotted Tiger Flower of the recurved, clawed petals. "Camera or water -color box?" I said to Flower Hat. "Both, and then, ten to one, we miss it wholly," she answered, going cautiously to the well to let down her water -cup by a string, for old wells are treacherous, both to drink or to dip from, and had best be left alone. "You take the chimney and single Lily and I'll try the easiest group," she added; "because the ESCAPED FROM GARDENS 87 breeze has sprung up again and the flowers are all wabbling this way and that, like heads in a street crowd." "How I wish that these flowers might stay here, and go on growing and spreading. But some one is sure to come and root them up," I half said, half sighed, as, at the end of an hour, we turned to come away. "Your sketch is really very mussy, and the Lilies look very much like fat Poppies. If only the wind would drop for one single second I could get at least a fine outline of it all. But it is useless to snap at a brick -red flower when you wish detail. I wonder if the Lily by the chimney moved. I think not." "For my part, I prefer painting to photography," said Flower Hat, packing up her colors. " Now, I 'm perfectly certain that my sketch is mussy, and a failure, so my mind is settled about it, while you cannot be sure, yes or no, about your chimney until you go home and work magic with the plate in that stuffy dark-room. Such long suspense as that would quite unnerve me. "Please, Madam Pick -not- dig-not- but-stand- and- admire, may I take home a few of those Tiger Lilies to copy and paint neatly, accurately and inar- tistically on a china plate? " 88 ESCAPED FROM GARDENS So we began to laugh as she gathered a huge armful from places where their loss would not alter the setting of the picture. But, as she stood in the chaise arranging the Lilies in the thrown -back hood which I so frequently used as a carry- all, I saw the expression of her face change. She gave a little gasp and stood quite still, looking back at the Lilies, upon which the slanting rays of the sun shone in a way to change the whole perspective. "I see now what you mean about a flower in its haunt having a different poise, a different meaning from a flower in the hand. You are quite right. I can already feel the difference between the grow- ing and the picked Lily, even though, at best, they are rather wooden, unsympathetic flowers." "Not exactly wooden, though not sympathetic," I urged. "Say decorative, pure and simple flowers of the landscape; flowers that, when gathered, we should arrange indoors, environed as nearly as possi- ble with the light, shade, background and colors of their homes. I think that this is the true secret of the house use of wild flowers. If we cannot touch them without their shrinking from us, if we may not bring and retain even the faintest sugges- tion of their surroundings with them, either in foli- age, bark or moss, as in the case of Spring Beauty, ESCAPED FROM GARDENS 89 Arrowhead, Pickerel Weed, Cardinal Flower, then it were best to leave them where they grow." "Let us go home the back way by that deserted house we saw the other day, opposite the mill, where we took luncheon," said Flower Hat. "I want to keep a sketch and thought of that just as the old people left it, before it grows blind and deaf, win- dowless, doorless and weird, like the Lilac House. I wonder if there is anything newer to escape from that poor little garden than the other flowers we have found hereabouts!" "Here are two plants, in addition to Phlox and Bachelor's Buttons, which, unless I am much mis- taken, will soon be travelling down the roadway and be carried by the river to the fertile fields be- low," I said a little later, as we unhasped the gate and looked at the little array of flowers kept in a tangled line by a row of flat river stones set upright at each side of a path, made also of flat stones. "This prickly Mexican Poppy, with its white - striped leaves, has already sown itself below the road bank on the river -side. I noticed it the last time we were here. Then here is yellow Candy- tuft, whose seed has caught far up on that rock ledge yonder, and here is another Orpine, which is 9O ESCAPED FROM GARDENS sure to spread like the Live -forever we saw to-day; besides, these seeding tufts of Columbine are likely to become settlers. They bore white flowers in May; I saw them once in passing, and that day, too, the old man Keeler was fussing about the garden. This bunch of Prince's Feather, which droops its coarse red plumes over the wickets, is already common in places all up the road, as far as Georgetown and the Ridge. It is a sort of big cousin of the pink Knotweed, that edges the road at home, between the marshes, the beach and Sun- flower Lane. Then here are Bachelor's Buttons and Catchfly, that has strayed both up and down the road, followed by that white and purple Phlox. As for the common garden Sunflower, it has escaped everywhere. I think this very place has long since sent a colony down stream to locate by the cross- road bridge, where a different soil has somewhat changed its form of growth. Two years ago I saw them there, and, at a little distance, took them for Earth Apples or Jerusalem Artichokes, but they were only plain Sunflowers escaped from gardens. "This same Artichoke, now so often seen by waysides and in modern gardens, escaped far back in the dim past from a cultivation of which no record even remains; it was planted and tended by ESCAPED FROM GARDENS 9 1 aboriginal people, of whose coming and passing we do not know. The plant belongs in Asia. Did a lost tribe bring it journeying eastward at a time when, through Alaska, the east and western conti- nents were one? Who can say, except that by a flower there lives a link, binding the now to things beyond the sight. So through a wayside plant race history comes to Lonetown." Time o' Year came down the road leading home his cow from her grazing -ground by the upper pond. "I think if I were not here he would tell you a bit of news," said Flower Hat. "I 'm sure that he has something on his mind." "Makin' a long day of it, considerin' ye 've spent it all along the roadsides," he said, pausing to let the cow snatch up a tempting bit of clover. "Yes; we 've been thinking of people and old gardens, instead of looking for really wild flowers. It is hard to understand why in all these forgotten places the flowers are the last things to leave ex- cept the very stones. I wish that I could read the meaning of it all between the lines." "Meaning?" queried Time o' Year, looking down the river, his rare smile spreading over his bronzed face as he paused a moment to listen to the rolling warble of a rose -breast. "There 's lots of meanings 92 ESCAPED FROM GARDENS that we are n't meant to read in outdoor things as well as human ways, but I reckon that one 's plain enough. It 's that we ought to be keerful not to plant things in our gardens that, when we air gone, will trouble other folks and bring discredit on us." Time o' Year smiled again, as if he could see more meanings than he voiced, and, giving the rope a gentle pull, led the cow down to a clear, quiet pool to drink, the clean Mint fragrance rising from their trail. IV IN SILENT WOODS 'YSTERY is the keynote of the wood- lands. When we enter them, the range of the eye is instantly short- ened, deflected in a dozen ways from the pursuit of a direct object. The light, set a -quiver by restless leaves, glances from tree -bole to tree -bole, destroying all sense of direction, and concealing the outlines of both ani- mals and flowers by an atmospheric color protection, so that it is quite possible to lose one's way in even a familiar bit of pathless woods. The forest juggles with the ear as well as with the eye. The wind in the upper branches causes the leaves to patter against each other like the first hurried drops of a shower, while below all is airless, suffocating. Then the pattering suddenly ceases, and a ground breeze sweeps through the Ferns, that bend and sway, but with an utter silence that is incomprehensible. A branch cracks a hundred yards away — it seems at the elbow. 93 94 IN SILENT WOODS You step on a dead twig, and it gives out a per- cussion like the snapping of a distant trigger. Scar- let Tanager utters his clear call, apparently close above your head. You seek but cannot see him, for he may be either three or many rods away. You grope about half a day for a desired flower, and finally, sitting upon the moss to rest, in despair of finding it, you discover that it surrounds you on every side. In the woodlands one may always expect the unexpected; and it usually happens. It would also seem that a peculiar temperament in both animal and plant life is necessary to make the isolation from society, sun, and air endurable; for by woodlands I do not mean the woody fringes that border meadows, spring up under the pro- tection of highway fences, or thirstily follow the edge of a river, but the forest as nearly prime- val as we may find it in a heedlessly woodwast- ing region, where legitimate felling of the ma- ture tree for timber is too often followed by the destruction of the sapling for cord -wood, and of nearly all shrubby growths for kettle or pea -brush; the untracked forest, where the red -tail and red- shouldered hawks still nest, in company with a pair or two of great horned owls, where the oven- bird pitches its tent on a prairie of Ground Pine, IN SILENT WOODS 95 and the ruffed grouse scratches dry Beech leaves together, to nest her cream -brown eggs and at the same time help conceal them. These untroubled woods are where no roadway, nor bush -cutting, nor trampling to and fro has encouraged weedy under- brush, or caused the deep black soil to wash away between the rocks ; where, on moist plateaus, catching rare sunlight on its pinkish, sharply recurved petals, the Shooting Star is found. "Nothin' much that kin move seems to like the very big woods for livin' in," said Time o' Year one day, as he returned from the Hem- lock ridge, axe on shoulder. He was glancing at a stalk of blackening Indian Pipe, which was the flower of the day in the buttonhole of his shirt. Though he protested at the wholesale uprooting of wild things, he always wore a flower in shirt, vest, or coat, as season and garment varied; and when frost raised its fin- 96 IN SILENT WOODS ger, a bit of aftermath — Winterberries, a Witch Hazel pod — a sprig of Cedar or of Hemlock re- placed the flower. "The coons and foxes that hole up in woods," he continued, "sort of keep to the edges, and al- ways go out field or along the rivers to feed. Even the kind o' hawks that set their nests in the tops o' the big trees, and the little warbling birds and two kinds o' thrushes that build low, seem in a hurry to be off when nesting and molting 's over. Take me now; I could n't live away from woods, but then, again, to live in 'em would be too solemn. Ye can't see what 's comin', only what 's been by and left tracks. As far as huntin' goes, that 's fair enough; but for livin', it 's right down discouragin'. You 've got to see ahead. For posies now it 's dif- ferent, though there 's heaps o' wood -bred kinds that straggle out into clearin's, or mebbe stay on when the woods air cleaned above 'em, that seem to do first-rate. But there 's others that are n't the same unless you go up in the woods to see 'em. Mebbe they 'd grow just as big, or bigger even, in dooryards, but they look homesick and strange. Af- ter they're once teched something 's gone from 'em. If ye want to learn wood posies ye must do it in the woods. IN SILENT WOODS 97 "Ye ought to have seen that Pipe Plant up yon- der under the Hemlocks, the same place that pink Ladies' Slippers grow in May. It looked just like snow comin' up through the ground and burstin* into flowers; but take it out in the sun, it 's terrible dead to see. The Ladies' Slippers, too, were just like butterflies, a-perchin' up there on the bank; but them that some o' the Hill Top folks yanked up and put in the garden looked like lumps o' raw meat with flies a buzzin' round 'em. Take even Laurel and Dogwood, that 's tough and hardy; 't ain't the same when they 're all trimmed and platted out in beds in the open grass, even if they do grow." Time o' Year had the right of it, as usual. To transplant a wild flower without making a semblance of its haunt in its surroundings is to leave its attri- butes behind. Even those that thrive in cultivation, though they may gain in bodily vigor, lose the at- mosphere that lent them charm, and soon become the commercial plants of florists. Thus they take the first step on the road that leads parallel to the path to the hades of nature -lovers, the carpet gar- den, once within whose gates those that have en- tered willingly and knowingly must abandon all hope of better things. And yet the characteristics of wood plants are so marked that they will long sur- G 98 IN SILENT WOODS vive the destruction of their haunts if they them- selves are left untouched. The surroundings may alter, the sheltering trees disappear, but so long as a footing remains, or a drop of moisture to refresh them, the wood things retain a native dignity. To consider every Flower and Fern that may be found in shady ways, on wood edges, on half -cleared lands or following the water courses as they wind through forests, would be to catalogue more than half the native flowers that bloom from Arbutus until Witch Hazel time; yet the greater number of the landscape flowers of the New England woods may be gathered from four tribes: the Lily family, the Dogwood, Viburnum and the Heath, though in the botanic world, for the reason of the great variety of forms it held, the Heath Family has lately been divided into separate households. When Time o' Year brushed the dead leaves from the pink Arbutus buds he opened the first page of this wonderful Heath Family register, which never closes the whole of the round year, for the pungent fruits of the Checkerberry or Wintergreen outlast the winter and often contrast their lusty redness with the snow of white Hepaticas. Though these fami- lies enter the woods almost in company, the Lily and Dogwood leading in landscape beauty, the Heath, IN SILENT WOODS QQ possessed both of shrubs with evergreen leaves and exquisite blossoms and also of many strange, lowly - growing plants, transcends them all. When, in May, Flowering Dogwood, either as a shrub or a slender -limbed, flat-branching tree, flashes the dazzling white of its flower wrappings at us from between the trunks of tall trees, whose leaf- age is quite up out of range, it seems as if this luxuriant blossoming among the stern woodgrowths must be wrought by magic. It is little to be wondered that Indian lore took this flower as the flag of truce between frost and growth, and that the Red Men hastened to plant their maize as soon as it unfurled before the breeze. Yet, con- spicuous as are these wrappings, for the flowers themselves make the small green central cluster, at a little distance they too blend away mysteri- ously, appearing like mere spots of light among the other shadows. At this season if the eye drops to the ground, where it slopes sunward and the undergrowth is herbaceous rather than densely shrubby, it may see the Lily family making its entrance, clad also in purity, where the clean leaves and graceful petals of the White Wood Trillium nod as they seem to bend and hurry down the slope, crowding at the bottom 100 IN SILENT WOODS as if some Spring enchantment born of moisture and deeper soil were luring them there. Others of the tribe are blooming far and near. Bellworts are scattered all along the way in little gossiping groups; jungles of the leafy stalks of tall Solomon's Seal conceal the humble nodding blossoms by the weight of leaves; Wild Leeks are sending up their long flat blades, which disappear before the flower-stalk comes, White Hellebore is uncrumpling its wide leaves and shaking its greenish flower - plumes in wet places from which the yellow Adder's - Tongue is now fading; but it is the great White Trillium that turns the bit of woodslope into a picture unpaintable save by the Magician who alone can render detail without losing atmosphere. Almost every flower pose is taken by the tri- petaled blossoms which, so white in their first opening, flush as they mature until they often fade in rosy pink, — things wholly apart from Wake Robin, their kindred of crimson petals and carrion odor. After the Trailing Arbutus has gone and the Pinxter- flower, too, of what does the Heath tribe boast? Useful offspring in the guise of Blueberry, Huckleberry, Bilberry and Dangleberry, of high estate and low, going through a score of species, IN SILENT WOODS IOI which fill the wood -edges and openings in May and early June with fine sprays of small, whitish, bell - shaped blossoms that suggest the old - world Heaths from which the tribe took its name. The blossoms are mainly inconspicuous, yet they count for much in masses and the berries are all edible, either for man or bird. The leaves, of a tender green at first, progress through many shades, until in Autumn they change to a rich leather-red, of the same color worn by the Pepperidge, and so carry the fire into the underbrush of the woods, where it burns as brightly as the Sumac flame on the bare hillsides. In late May and early June white still remains the flower color of the wood, of shrubs and of smaller trees. The Hobble Bush opens its cymes of florets, shaped much like a flattened garden Snowball, and soon the Maple -leaved Arrow- wood keeps it company, though the latter, like many of the Whortle- and Blueberries, is more noticeable in Autumn from the peculiar shade of pink worn by its Maple -like leaves. Meanwhile, close to the ground the Dwarf Cornel or Bunch -berry is imi- tating the blossom of its cousin, the Flowering Dogwood, and holding its greenish enveloped flower -clusters above a whorl of leaves. This plant 102 IN SILENT WOODS is also better known by the bright red knot of berries that follow than by the bloom itself. Many wood -plants that blossom in the early season must be recognized by leaf or fruit, for people in general do not tramp the woods before late June, when the flowery carpet is turning to greens and other leaf-tones. So it is with the fragile feathers of White Baneberry ; its blooms have faded by June, but the compound leaves and red -stemmed clusters of white berries are conspicuous until frost and serve as punctuation points to the eye in glancing over the vague masses of Ferns and Summer leafage. Wild Sarsa- parilla also parts with its feathery white flower - balls in June, and its bristling seed -pods, seeming at first glance like those of Parsley, Caraway and Dill, tell its name throughout the Summer woods. Medeola, more widely known as Indian Cucumber Root, at the fertile season when May blends with June, raises a sort of two -story stalk, sometimes two feet or more in height, with a whorl of Lily- veined leaves in the middle, and another at the summit supporting an umbrella of greenish white flowers. So transient are they in their blooming that the outer florets often wither before the cen- tral ones unfold, leaving the cluster of shining ber- IN SILENT WOODS 103 ries to tell the plant's name all Summer, as they turn from light green through red to dark purple. As for Medeola's companion in damp woods, the slender -stemmed Trientalis or Starflower, cousin of Loosestrife's, it springs up as if stretch- ing to reach the light, throws out a wheel of leaves, a few star- shaped pale flowers , which so resemble the Chickweeds as to win for it the local name of Chickweed Winter - green, and vanishes again, having no tint of leaf, flower or berry to win for it a place in the wood - land- scape. Now also the Smooth Sweet Cicely, with its much -compounded leaves and flat clusters of fine white flowers like all the Parsley tribe, lures children to the woods to dig its pungent root, dire mischief sometimes following, for its com- panion in -moist, shady ground is often the deadly 104 IN SILENT WOODS Poison Hemlock, the two plants being quite alike to unaccustomed eyes ; and it is not until the flowers of Sweet Cicely give place to the strongly Anise - flavored seeds that any one but a botanist can tamper with the roots in safety. Moccasin -flowers and a rare Orchis or two bring alien color to the wood carpet of dead leaves, Hemlock needles, Ground Pines and soft Mosses ; but Orchids must flock alone and not be inventoried with less usual plants. All this time, tight wrapped in buds of last season's growth, like many shrubs of both ever- green and falling leaf, the Mountain Laurel and American Rhododendron are preparing their bravery, the one climbing the rocky steeps of the drier woods, the other seeking moist glens and always keeping under high shade. All the year the abrupt branches and persistent smooth green leaves of this Laurel have relieved the monotony of gray rocks and tree -trunks. All Summer the thick oval leaves act as foil to the juicier greens of Ferns and fragile wood plants. In Autumn, as other foliage drops away, they stand revealed as evergreens, together with Christ- mas Ferns, the creeping Polypody, stiff Red Cedars and the sweeping Hemlocks. IN SILENT WOODS IO5 In Winter, when snowdrifts fill the valleys and even the Cedars are a rusty bronze, the Laurel lifts its triumphant bay wreaths high up on ravine sides above ice-bound rocks. In late spring the old leaves droop awhile and look dim and mottled in contrast with the fresh new shoots. Then soon the bushes hold up their bouquets of rose -fluted buds that, by the Magician's jugglery, in June spring open into quaint five -pointed umbrella tops, with ten recurved stamens for spokes, their ends well socketed as if to support the expanded flower, remaining thus until shaken by an eager bee or the wind's jarring, when the spokes spring back, scattering the precious life-dust for the seed's nourishment. No flower of wood or field, marsh or fertile waterway can surpass the beauty of the freshly opened Laurel, when it pinks and pales, according to soil, location and individuality, through all the subtlest tints of flower- flesh. Yet no single flower- cluster can give an idea of the Laurel of the land- scape,— the Laurel that wraps rough steeps in clouds of bloom ; that, pale and wan, climbs up the sides of somber, sunless valleys until, reaching the summit and high air, it basks in open places, rosy, as if with its exertion. 106 IN SILENT WOODS Like the Flowering Dogwood, it has a startling way of stretching out a branch of dazzling blos- soms among deep shadows, as if it were a sentient thing, and knew that contrast heightened its tran- scendency. Peter Kalm, the Swedish botanist, when he first beheld the New World wilderness couleur de rose with this flower, in reference to the small Laurel, wrote in his journal: "Its leaves stay the winter; the flowers are a real ornament to the woods : they grow in bunches like crowns . . . around the extremity of the stalk, and make it look like a decorated pyramid." Of the Mountain Laurel he adds, "It was likewise in full blossom. It rivals the preceding one in the beauty of its color." We know that he took good report of it to Lin- naeus, his master, who named the genus after him, for our shrub is no kin of the Old World Laurel, the name having been given to it for a likeness in the leaf. As the Mountain Laurel drops its flowers and grows ragged for a time, the Wild Rhododendron begins to show much the same delicate tints of rosy color ; but the throat of its wide, five -cleft corolla is often sprinkled with varied golden spots. The Rhododendron's leathery leaf is double as long IN SILENT WOODS IO7 and thick as is the Laurel's; the flower -clusters and florets also, roughly speaking, are twice as large. The Laurel, however, blooms with more uni- formity than its giant cousin, and carries its flowers more boldly. The Rhododendron gains strength and symmetry when living untouched in a wooded glen where the branches twist and interlace to form impenetrable barriers, studded with perfectly formed bouquets of wax -like flowers, each cluster growing from a wheel of leaves. With the fading of Laurel and Rhododendron the upper color of the deep wood vanishes. But on the lighter edges and river banks we meet white once more in Clethra and Swamp Azalea, both of the old Heath tribe ; then we must lower the eye to Mother Earth again, as in the Spring days of Adder's Tongue, Hepatica, Anemone and Yellow Violet. Days of June and young July, woods from which the Spring chill has passed, a bed of moss and silence. Take no books. The stillness is too ab- sorbing and profound for reading. Go close to the earth and smell its spiciness. Rest the body and travel with the mind. Focus the eye on the un- dergrowth with which the foot is the more often 108 IN SILENT WOODS familiar. Seek out mimic landscapes of a country where stately Brakes and Royal Ferns are trees, various Wintergreens are shrubs, the various mosses, grass, crumbling stumps and lichened branches, ruined castles, and squirrel, lizard, white-footed mouse and whippoorwill the inhabitants, It is airless in the deep Summer woods, at once cool and oppressive. You push back your hair from a damp forehead and think of the open places, the glen where Time o' Year's waterway rushes through, a cool breeze always following in its wake, and you wonder why you did not follow the banks where from time to time you could at least dip your hands or handkerchief in cool water. The restless push of Spring has passed. You no longer fear that some long -sought flower picture of the season's moving panorama will slip by unseen. The white flower-balls of the Four-leaved Milkweed close at hand whisper of the sun -hot fields where live its sturdy kin, where even now Summer is holding its flower dance in open revelry, the Ma- gician lending all the colors of his palette for the costuming. Then the wind comes backward to the wood and for a time the eye leaves the search for broad effects and turns toward detail. For the Summer woods one must have human IN SILENT WOODS 109 companionship, else the silence is too oppressive, the stiffening tension of bodily inactivity on the vibrant nerves is too great. A woman may go happily on the flower quest in byway, lane, through open fields or along the waterways, if she numbers a woman friend, a dog, or a patient horse among her intimates ; but for the silent woods, man is woman's needful com- plement. May there not be paths to cut and gullies to cross, and even snakes to be killed? And it was not the feminine half of mankind who was told to bruise the serpent's head with her heel ! Lovers? Yes; court- ing days are in touch with the silence of wood rambles, but for the flower side of the quest, married lovers are best. Their vision has a far wider range. They have the tranquillity that heightens memory, and they go and come from a mutual home, follow the pathways of nature in IIO IN SILENT WOODS less fitful and feverish mood than those who say goodnight at the gate. All the ground odor does not come from the earth itself. As you gaze dreamily at the infinite shadings of the moss, small round leaves separate themselves from it, following a threading vine hither and thither until the mossy cushion merges into a leafy bank dotted here and there by waxy red berries. In passing the hand over the leaves, new shoots will turn back and show the velvety -tubed throat and the tiny, cross -shaped flowers of the Partridge Vine, another wood plant that holds its fruitage through the winter. Small as the flower is, its fragrance is exquisite, being a refinement of the same quality of perfume which we find in Clethra, Lizard's Tail, Buttonbush and Swamp Azalea. To pull a handful from the mass is but to find a straggling vine that almost depends for identity upon its unity with its haunt, but seen where it covers the ground with green -red -white, it must be counted with the decorative flowers of the mimic landscapes of deep woods. A bluish color, novel at all times in the woods, draws the eye to a partly open space where, clus- tered in the hollows between tree roots, there re- IN SILENT WOODS III main some belated tufts of low flowering Phlox. The first thought is of wonder that a plant "escaped from gardens" should have chosen so lonely and in- hospitable a lodging ; but memory comes presently to aid the eye, and names the flower Wild Blue Phlox, of the same tribe as both the Wild Sweet William of more southerly moist woods, and the Creeping Moss Pink of dry or rocky soil. Rosettes of smooth ^-AjU round leaves follow WILD BLUE PHLOX each other from under a Beech tree, in the strag- gling procession suggestive of tap -roots, while groups with larger leaves support straight flower - stems hung with scalloped, bell -shaped florets, which give the perfume, at once sweet and aromatic, that is peculiar to the Round -leaved Pyrola, Shinleaf or Wintergreen, still called by Time o' Year Wild Lily -of -the -Valley. "Yes, I know it ain't a Lily," he said one day 112 IN SILENT WOODS when I, half laughing, referred him to his " study - book." "But it 's just the same to me as if it was, and that 's the name she called it. Not that I 'd wish to spread an error, but just between me and her and it, that posy '11 allus be Wild Lily- o' -the- Valley." I wonder whether the day will come when the old man will tell me of the dead wife whom he designates as "her," and about the boy of thirty years ago, and why he himself left the farm to live a hermit in the roadside cabin. If he does, I well know that the story will be told when he has OAK-LEAVED GERARDIA IN SILENT WOODS 113 raised his finger warningly, whispered "Come and see ! " and led me to the cherished haunt of some flower that she knew under a homespun name. The soft, dry Beech leaves, crumbling to rich mould, end in a sort of fairy ring of frail young Maidenhair, and Hemlock sheddings cover the ground, where plants of a strange form stretch up scaly, flesh -like spikes, crowned by a few loosely- clustered flowers. The newly -opened blossoms are yellowish, the maturer violet -pink, but except for the four-petaled flowers the plant seems a fungus growth ; yet a faint odor steals from it to identify the flower, though it is half a parasite, as the False Beech Drops of the old Heath tribe, and half brother to the taller ice -white Indian Pipe. Surely the Indian Pipe itself is a plant to con- jure with, and Ghost Flower is the most fitting of its many names. What thought had the Magician when he planned its evolution ? Was he dreaming still of the Autumn frost -flowers born at dawn from frozen sap and a sun -kiss? Or was he seeking to incarnate a fantastic icicle in the flower world ? Silent even among voiceless ways stand the Indian Pipes, unbendable, and grouped like statues. They do not respond to the touch of the low ground breezes that turn the hedging Ferns rudely about, H 114 IN SILENT WOODS leaving them in a mute flutter long after the wind has ceased. At the touch of man the flesh of this flower of translucent whiteness blackens; but un- troubled it will linger in its home, going through various changes from a drooping to an erect flower with tints toward pinkish purple for a month, or even two, and I have sometimes in November, after a hard frost, found its then really icy stalks. Yonder, quite under the Hemlock shade, the stalks shoot up six inches or more before they reveal the flower that caps them ; in shape it is a reversed pipe bowl. Here among the Ferns, on the Beech copse's open edge, though under high shade, the flower -buds barely pierce the ground before re- laxing, though afterward the stem attains a greater length. Such faint odor as the flower has is crude and chemical, as of something in a transi- tion state, not yet to be determined. There is one day in the July woods which, to me at least, is not like other days. This day is when we go to the river-woods to find the mot- tled-leaved Pipsissewa, or Spotted Wintergreen, in its perfect bloom under the great Chestnut tree. Not that it is a flower of a day, by any means, for it stays the month out in southern New Eng- land. It also gives good notice of the coming of IN SILENT WOODS its season by the whitening of the globe-shaped flower-buds hanging suspended above the sharp- toothed, dark green leaves, which show light marblings above and a dull mauve undertint. The trailing underground stem, sending out both leaf and flower branches, being unseen, makes every group appear to have a separate existence, but the hand that seeks to trans- plant them works sad mis- chief. The haunt where we go yearly to meet this flower is on a hillside. There giant Chestnuts touch branches, and the foot sinks in soft moss and Ground Pine, and the Trailing Christmas Green sets snares to trip the heedless. The place is a sort of steep knoll, bounded by river IN SILENT WOODS and a wandering bit of marsh which few have crossed, save sportsmen and the random seeker for strayed cattle. Bog Moss floors half the pathway over the low ground mingled with Shining Club Mosses, Sweet Flag, and Bur Reeds. Then comes a space of damp, sand -covered stones, / once a brook bed, and now con- cealed by Creeping Scale Moss or Selaginella; and on the moist, shady bank above, the long, graceful white flower -spikes of Black Cohosh make a feathery thicket, through which we push to gain the knoll, trampling Starry Campion on every side. Once within this boundary, the deeply compound leaves and long flower -panicles of Spikenard make us pause a moment in admiration. This plant sometimes vigorously holds its blossoms up to the very chin, as if to bid us examine their minute beauty, though the wine- colored fruit that follows classes it with those frequent wood things bet- ter known by berry than by flower. IN SILENT WOODS II? Here, too, but little above a foot in height, the rare Ginseng has sometimes lodged, spreading its leaves, in shape somewhat like the Horse-chestnut's, beneath the yellowish flowers that also play second fiddle to the later bright red berries. A few steps more, and the goal is reached, — Pip- sissewa everywhere! Occasionally the flowery trail is of the green -leaved kind called Prince's Pine, each plant rising a perfect mimic tree, but bearing smaller flowers than the Spotted Wintergreen, its brother. Down on my knees I go as when Time o' Year led me to the Arbutus bank, for these two wood- flowers are kin. On my knees; yes, and farther, down quite flat, until the flowers of recurved, flesh - white petals and pink stamens, ranged like the setting to a central green seed -globe, are on a level with my eyes, and their fugitive perfume is mingled with the odor of crushed leaves and moss. In Pipsissewa (lover of winter is the name's in- terpretation) culminates what might be called the leaf -mold flowers of the woodland season; those that, keeping close to Mother Earth, brighten winter bareness with their cheerful evergreen leaves, and by their flowering distil the leaf decay of Autumn into Spring and Summer fragrance. Il8 IN SILENT WOODS Pipsissewa is a picture flower in the little land- scape of wood undergrowth, and yet it is one of the few blossoms of its class that may be picked and taken home without loss of quality. Only, I beg of you, cut the tree -like flower -branches above the ground instead of pulling them, which uproots and wastes the trailing stem beneath. Place your bouquet, which groups itself with flow- ers above and foliage underneath, in a green glass bowl of water, holding the stems in place with tufts of shaded mosses, and you will find that you have brought sufficient of Pipsissewa's haunt with it to justify the picking. But do not try to dig the plant up, for the chances are that you will discover, when it is too late, that you have despoiled the woods of beauty, only to obtain a mass of rootless plant- stems. The later season has its wood flowers, but none are so dear and intimate as those that bloom from April to middle July. After this, the surprises are in the shape of Fern fantasies. In midsummer days it is the Fern that lures us to the wood -path, and into the moist glades, where already Jack -in -the - Pulpit has thrown off his hood and is wearing a cap of stout green berries. Once again in August the woods glow with a IN SILENT WOODS IIQ yellow, richer than any seen there since Marsh Marigold time. But in late Summer this color has left the low, wet shade, and come up to the dry Oak woods, where leaf - mold is compacted into blackened loam, and the undergrowth is of Laurel, Blueberries, Brakes, and slender Wood Sunflowers. In such haunts the straight, leafy stalks of smooth Yellow False Foxglove, the branches all turned upward, rise four, five, and often six feet. The wide-lipped, tube-shaped flowers, two inches in length, smooth outside but velvety within, make golden wands of the stalk-top and branches, the color creeping up and outward as the buds unfold. The old name of this plant was Oak -leaved Gerardia, from Gerarde of herbal fame and from its leaf form. It seems a fitting name, as the flower is dependent upon certain organic matter for maintenance and seems to find a satisfactory supply of this in Oak woods. False Foxglove grows in Time o' Year's woods also, and along the glen road below the Lilac House. But to see it in its glory, one must fol- low the river down past its mingling with the salt, then thread Sunflower Lane and take the narrow track made by hay wagons across the salt meadows to Wakeman's Island. 120 IN SILENT WOODS "Are there Oak woods on the beach - crest ?" is your thought, I know. Yes, for the sea has eaten its way backward year by year and century by cen- tury, until fresh and salt water meet and mingle, where once were only dry woods, fresh ponds and a river glen. Nell well knows the way to this Oak -crowned crest, which, at the high tides of Fall and Spring, is an island. Even in late Summer it is reached at low water only by a soggy strip of road full of deep gullies made by the wagons carrying the heavy loads of damp salt grass back to the upland meadows for drying. When we last went on that road, Nell and I, Rose Mallows lined it, Sunflowers almost closed above our heads, Hyacinth Beans climbed over the Alder bushes, and the lovely purple Gerardia bloomed in the ridges between the wheel tracks. Then Mistress • Nell wore a mosquito blanket and green boughs in her harness, and her mistress, in turn, was decked with an Asparagus bush upon her head that should have made the haymakers, if they knew enough (which they did not) think that Birnam Wood had missed Dunsinane and was wan- dering through a Connecticut marsh! The haymakers only paused and wondered per- IN SILENT WOODS 121 haps why a female not financially interested in salt hay should come that way, when low August tides leave the marsh tract a freehold to the breeding mosquito swarms. And, truly, crossing that marsh road is for both man and beast to withstand the attack of a million flying warriors, whose swords are needles. But once over and safe within the Oak shade, the eye refocused from the glare of the noon sun, the picture repaid for all. A wheel -track road between low banks was edged with giant brakes and golden wands of the Yellow Gerardias. Beneath the Oaks a glow was spread among deepest shadows, as if the sunbeams sifting through the leaves were made prisoners where they lodged upon the undergrowth. Over and through this color, as a background, lay the marshes, with a thin covering of water here and there, the spaces between the pools blue with Sea Lavender. Another landscape flower to swell the list of the unpaintable; another blossom of a day, too frail to pick, unless, as I did, you shake the opened florets off and trust to the opening of to-morrow's buds for your reward. Not since the days when the green outer walls of the Lilac House hung with flowers had I heard 122 IN SILENT WOODS such bee -droning and insect music as around these Gerardias. I thought to take a picture of a group that circled an Oak trunk, to piece out the memory of it in winter days. But when the sea breeze ceased, every flower bell seemed shaken from within by hungry diners, and disappointed new-comers went from flower to flower, failing to find even standing room. Then, at last, for three brief seconds wind and bees were quiet in unison. So was another cell of flower memory filled, and one more picture added to my photo - herbarium. V SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS INK Ladies' Slippers is wonderful plenty this season over in Old Hemlocks," said Time o' Year, coming suddenly upon us one afternoon in late May, when I was sauntering through the upper Hemlock lane looking for fertile fronds of the three flow- ering ferns, Royal, Cinnamon and Claytonia, which grow in the roadside runnels, Nell following at her browsing leisure. "I never see so many in bud and blow before," he continued. "There 's usu'lly some bunches of 'em in the Glen Woods, and a few scatterin* down the ridge by Tree -bridge, like as if they was steppin' careful and choosin' their footin' so 's not to get runnin' and fall in the river. But up there in Old Hemlocks they 're jest settin' round among the broken stubs and on the edge of root bowls thick as a picnic; yet for all that they don't seem a mite less curious than when they 're in twos and threes. Every one on 'em looks ' hands off !' and sets up a different way from the next." 123 124 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS Time o' Year thus keenly sensed the leading feature of the entire Orchid tribe — unusualness. To the general public, even the word Orchid has a foreign sound that conjures up a flower of glow- ing color perched bird -like in the tree -tops of a tropic jungle, or entertained as an honored guest in a hothouse, where all conditions are arranged to suit the caprice of its air -feeding appetite ; for to the majority the Orchid is, above all things, an air -plant. Yet of the five thousand or more species that range over the temperate and warmer portions of the globe, it is only in the tropics that the epi- phytes, drawing their sustenance from the air, are of frequent occurrence. The tribe of the Orchid comprises many house- holds under one general roof, and the habits of this original family are as variable as their colors. An Orchid may grow from a bulb, a hard, coral - like corm, or a mat of fleshy or tuberous roots. It may live in a tree -top in torrid regions, or it may inhabit the depths of cold, sunless northern bogs ; it may lend rich color to the grasses of an open meadow, or flourish equally well in the dry, crumbling mold of evergreen woods. It may, ac- cording to its kind, bear flowers a hand's breadth in size, of exquisite coloring to attract the insects SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 125 upon whose services this race so largely depends for fertilization of seed, or it may have a blos- som so dull in color or so minute that, as in some of the Habenarias, a microscope is needed to make its naming sure. The flowers may grow singly, on a wholly leafless scape, in spikes or in droop- ing panicles. They may have broad, fringed, thin, narrow, or bearded lips like the showy fringed purple and green Orchises and the rose -colored Pogonia, or be pouched, as in the Cypripediums or Ladies' Slippers, both foreign and native. You will, however, find a strong family cast of feature, an eccentric lip type in every one, and if you will carefully scan the features of the crystal white Rattlesnake Plantain and Ladies' Tresses of our woods and low meadows, you will see the same lineaments as in the rare greenhouse beauties which peer through a veil of costly ferns to make a bride's bouquet. Here in New England such Orchids as we have mingle humbly in the earth with lowly plants of bog and wood, and yet retain their marks of race and breeding, for even the children that pick them carelessly on their way "'cross lots" or going up through the Tree -bridge woods to school, carrying them in tight-fisted bunches to their teacher, 126 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS recognize them fully as being "not just common flowers." Beauty and fragrance are the chief attributes of this royal race. Even though the seed -pod of one genus is the Vanilla Bean of commerce, and one or two of the tuberous -rooted species furnish a me- dicinal paste, the tribe is not so notable for these as that it harbors the dove-like winged petals of the Holy Spirit Flower, the Butterfly Orchid of the tropics, the Moccasin Flowers of our woods, and the lovely fringed Orchises of the wet meadows. Orchids offer structural problems quite as intri- cate as the higher mathematics. For every part of the flower, every color, tint and spot, as well as the specialized perfume, has its own share in the sys- tem of signals which the Magician has furnished the blossom, that it may call the insect best suited to its needs. However, this whole subject of insect fertilization belongs to science, to the biological - botanist ; it is too profound and serious a matter for a Summer day in the field, or to be awkwardly fingered by the nature -lover who follows the flower - trail for the pleasures of eye and ear, for the rest it brings to the brain and the peace to the soul. No less a man than Darwin has confessed that after devoting twenty years to their study, he doubted if SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 127 he perfectly understood the contrivance to secure fertilization possessed by one single Orchid. Of the sixty species of Orchids found east of the Mississippi and north of Carolina and Ten- nessee, New England claims a scant fifty. Only a dozen of these can be called landscape flowers, even in the narrowest sense ; the rest belong to the realm of the analytic botanist. One thing is easy to remember about an Or- chid: the flower is made up of two groups, three petals and three sepals, like so many of the Lily tribe, its near kin; also that of the three petals the lower one, acting as a lip which is always noticeable, gives individuality and character to each species, while the sepals or the outer three petals often unite to form a sort of hood above the lip, lending the flower, according to its type, the appear- ance of a bird, a butterfly or some other winged insect. It is this peculiar combination of pouched lip and streaming petals and sepals that gives the rare Calypso of cold bogs, which ventures farther north than any of its brothers, creeping well up into both Alaska and Labrador, a more truly moccasin -like appearance than those that bear the name of Moccasin Flower. Calypso's shoe, raised on a stem above a single broad leaf, is dull pink 128 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS and furred inside with soft hairs. It has a curious, overlapped, double -pointed toe of pale yellow; a little rosette of shaded pink and yellow trims the instep, while the narrower petals blow in the breeze like ribbons meant to fasten the shoe about the ankle of its phantom wearer. Orchids have the parallel -veined leaves that we associate with Lilies, and in these also there is much variety, the leaves of the species growing in woods and open places where they have plenty of room being larger and more fully developed than those that have to struggle through a heavy under- growth of grass and rank weeds in meadow and bog. So that with our native Orchids the leaves range from those of the Moccasin Flowers, where there is either a single pair as long and broad as the -hand, or several large leaves growing up the stalk, Bellwort fashion, to the thread-like appen- dages of the slender grass-growing Ladies' Tresses or Tracies, as the word once read. If the of ten -advanced theory is true that all the plants now bearing flowers originally consisted only of leaves like ferns, and that from these leaves the ornamental parts of the flowers were developed, then the Orchid has kept many traces of its ancient descent, for there are several species of our SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS I2Q inconspicuous Orchises whose petals still appear to partake strongly of the leaf nature. All this time six feet are loitering along the road toward the Old Hemlocks, two wearing leather shoes and four iron, both wearers absorbed in the spring greenery, Leather -shoes reveling with her eyes, Iron -shoes with her mouth. The Old Hemlocks are not the woods that follow Saugatuck, Time o' Year's stream, nor the midway Aspetuck, but the companions of a river that once threaded the mill-ponds on its course like a string of glistening beads, passing saw-mills, grist-mills, mills with great wooden overshot wheels that circled slowly like a moving flight of steps, spreading magic rings of greenery about them by their splash and spray. There was even a little place, half forge, half saw -mill, set in a deep ravine among the rocks, that turned out musket -stocks and axe -helves. Now all save one of the clatter- ing wheels along the river's course have been silenced by the decrees of so-called progress and the buying -power of a water company. Twice have these grand old woods been wasted by the axe and once by fire, yet much of their beauty still remains, for tirelessly these many times I I3O SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS does the Magician, Heart of Nature, renew his sway, bind together, replant, covering bare rocks with cheerful Polypodies and softening decrepitude and age with a drapery of vines, before he finally yields his kingdom, reluctantly, to Heart of Man. The great Hemlocks from which this wood took name had vanished, some by the axe, others blown over, lifting the soil with their roots so that de- pressions, sometimes three feet deep and fifteen feet across, remained to be filled in time with pure leaf-mold. These tree bowls, whether they are found in evergreen or other woods, are always sure to be gardens of odd plants, and two years before, soon after the brush had been burned, I had seen groups of the pairs of strongly -ribbed green le-aves that promised a wealth of pink Moccasin Flowers later on. In giving English, or, as the saying is, popular names to plants, it is well to have if possible a fixed code, free from localisms and based upon pri- ority and reason, as in the case of Latin names. Such a code is established by Britton and Brown in their "Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States," and by L. H. Bailey, in the "Cyclopedia of American Horticulture," etc., in adding the most tangible English name to every plant possessing one, SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 131 and often giving the many local titles, in parenthesis as it were, to help the unlearned to establish flower identity. Yet when a common name, spicy with the odor of the new western world, is given to a plant, I think we should keep it, in spite of Lin- naean or pre-Linnaean nomenclature, and call our little group of inflated pouched Orchids, Moccasin Flowers, instead of Ladies' Slippers, as Britton does, a general title which confuses their person- ality with the European species. Ladies' Slipper is not a word in keeping with Hemlock and Beech woods, but the word Moccasin throws meaning into the black shadows and brings to mind the stone axe and flint arrow-heads found not long ago on the edge of a newly -plowed field, that was but recently a piece of these same woods. "With careless joy we thread the woodland way And reach her broad domain. Thro* sense of strength and beauty free as air, We feel our savage kin: And thus alone, with conscious meaning, wear The Indian's Moccasin." We stopped at a point where a pair of Chestnut stumps indicate the entrance to a wood road whose guardian gate-posts and rails now lie among the Ferns, keeping shape until touched, and then sepa- 132 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS rating into an intangible powder, half dust, half wood -mold. On this bank, peeping incautiously from be- tween Bellworts and the black stalks of a little forest of damp and only half -opened fronds of Maidenhair Ferns, was a single Moccasin Flower of unusual size and height, its pouch of an almost crimson hue. It stood like an outpost, com- manding a view both up and down the shady road. I straightway picked it, carefully wrapped its stem and leaves in damp moss, and hid it in the depths of the chaise -top; for, thought I, if, to-morrow being Saturday, any of the people coming down from the back country spy this flower, somebody will surely put two and two together, follow the trail into the woods , and make the whole colony prisoners. And SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 133 among all our native Orchids this Pink Moccasin Flower is the most hopeless to transplant, as away from its haunt in a year or two at most it pines away, appearing to find some unknown quality in its natal soil with which it cannot be supplied. Within the wood edge pairs of leaves and single flowers soon became more frequent, but these sank to insignificance when I came in sight of the first tree bowl. There the Moccasins were hold- ing a woodland flower market of their own, peep- ing over each other's shoulders, crowding the edges of the leafy hollow, straying down the sides and clustering in the bottom, facing this way and that, wearing every shade of color from flesh -white through pink to a deep, veiny purple, and all nod- ding and swaying as they were continually jostled by the eager bees who came to make their pur- chases of pollen and nectar. Notwithstanding the great attraction that a Pink Moccasin Flower in the hand offers us from its oddity, it is certainly much more beautiful in its haunts. There the paler flowers counteract the somewhat veiny quality of the deeper, and the soft browns of the Hemlock -strewn ground act as a setting to the whole, together with the surrounding air of mystery making it one of the half dozen New 134 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS England Orchids for which true landscape value may be claimed. Hereabout it is the earliest comer of the tribe. Oh, no! I am forgetting that there is one of another household still earlier, the Showy Orchis, which pierces the mold with its lily-like leaves in late April or early May, in company with Wake Robin, Bloodroot, Anemones, and Yellow Violets. Even Time o' Year does not know its haunt in the deep woods beyond Lonetown on the Ridgefield road, where I cherish a few plants of it, so rare in this region, by letting them alone in the hope that they will increase and that the seed may be borne to neighboring woods. This Orchis is most precise in its equipments, and when in its first perfection of bloom, it seems like an artificial plant of wax from its broad leaves, sometimes six inches in length and damp to the touch, to the tip of its spike of half a dozen spurred, shaded purple flowers with broad white or violet lips. Where it is common, it often gathers in crowds like the Moccasin Flowers or Fringed Orchises, but with the few rare plants of my discovering, each kept its distance from the other, as prim as children made ready for a party, who sit perched on chair edges in con- SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 135 strained attitudes to keep finery untumbled until the moment for departure comes. In common with many of the tribe the Showy Orchis has, on opening, a delicate earthy fragrance that turns to a decided muskiness after the fer- tilization of the flower; a perfume inseparable from leaf -mold blossoms to whatever tribe they may be- long. One quality it lacks, and that is gracefulness. If its flower -stem grew longer before the buds opened, so as to raise them well above the leaves and give the wind a chance to sway and bend them, the primness would vanish, and the Showy Orchis be captivating indeed. At present it reminds one of a lovely woman with so short a neck that she cannot turn her head ! Another Moccasin Flower, a taller cousin of the Pink, has sent a few venturesome pioneers over the Hemlock ridge to test the climate and soil on the coast side of it, for this family needs bracing air and usually keeps well away from salt water in- fluences. The Yellow Moccasin, or, as the French call it, Le Soulier de Notre Dame, comes in flower as the Showy Orchis passes, and precedes the exquisitely painted Showy Moccasin Flowers, whose splendid rose -and -white blossoms, often two on a stem, 136 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS seek high places and are seldom found in abun- dance south of Maine, New Hampshire and Ver- mont. It is well called Regina, for it is Queen of a princely family. The Yellow Moccasin is a striking flower of the highshaded woodland landscape. The uncleft shoe itself is of a clear smooth yellow, veined with purple ; the other two purplish petals hang as twisted strings, with a hood-like sepal arching be- tween. The flowers, singly or often in pairs, are raised upon a stout, leafy stalk a foot or two above the ground, clearing the more woody undergrowth which serves as a background to deepen their color. How the eye loves to linger upon yellow flow- ers! Of the three primary colors, yellow always seems to me the most harmonious under all condi- tions, from the first Marsh Marigold to the last brave wand of Goldenrod. Even after hard frosts, the same cheerful color wraps the low thickets wherever Witch Hazel blossoms, giving the land- scape, through this last flower of the season, a forecast of the Willow tints of early Spring. Roughly speaking, without attempting a census, it seems to me that taking the year through, the majority of landscape flowers are yellow. At least, such species as wear this color grow in greater SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 137 abundance than those of other hues. And if the strange yet plausible theory of Grant Allen be true, that all flowers were originally yellow, but that in the processes of evolution they have experi- mented with other colors only to work back again to the original hue, it is easy to account for the plentifulness of this color. In May and early June, when the tardiest Ferns have unfolded and yielded their winter woolens to yellow war- blers and humming- birds for nest -linings, and the Beech leaves have freed their hands from their furry mit- tens, another Orchid appears in the Hem- locks, in Time o' Year's woods, and in the woodland strips near the shore where the smooth shining leaves of the Twayblade attract the eye even before it becomes aware of the 138 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS spikes of purplish, green -winged, broad -lipped flowers that suggest the form of many a greenhouse Orchid. The Great or Lily -leaved Tway- blade is by far the more striking of the two, and when a dozen plants grow in a circle they are of distinct landscape value. This Twayblade grows from a bulb, and the bulbs are usually found in pairs, one bearing the leaves and flower-stalk, the sec- ond either not fully de- veloped or else having a pair of smaller leaves, but not yielding flowers until the second year. The leaves, though primarily of an unctuous sap-green color, are often, perhaps through prema- ture ripeness, streaked with yel- lows, purples and other Autumn -leaf -hues, which add greatly to the beauty of the plant, though if they were so pictured, the rigid botanist would declare the colors unauthorized. All of which proves that the plant seen in the landscape, like the liv- ing bird in the tree, is often plus some charming quality not accorded it by the text -books. The smaller Twayblade, or Fen Orchis, is quite SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 139 inconspicuous as to its flowers, which are more wholly greenish and are borne only four or five on a stem. Its oval leaves, too, are usually smaller. Though not generally common, when found it is usually in large colonies, so that at a little dis- tance the ground seems paved with the shining leaves that remind one of the Maianthemum or Small False Solomon's Seal of May woods. Both of the Twayblades flourish equally well in dry or springy woods. In fact, I have found them the two sturdiest and most constant members of the race, for they will endure transplanting and adapt themselves to new conditions very readily, if the soil is in any way suited to their needs. A few years ago I discovered a mixed colony blooming bravely in the hard, blackened soil of a bit of cleared woodland from which the stumps had been burned and where the plow was already at the work of turning it into a field. Under these cir- cumstances even Time o' Year could not object to the taking away of plants when their haunt had literally vanished from around them, so I rescued these Twayblades and put them into a wild, shady part of the home acres. They not only lived, but have spread, new plants appearing here and there at a wide distance from their parents, showing I4O SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS that the insects necessary for their fertilization have found them out in their new home. Except when we search for the Rattlesnake Plantain of late Summer, the Orchid path now leads altogether through open places, — springy pastures, bogs and meadows, that were long ago redeemed from the bog condition but which are deep with the black soil and firmly -rooted growths of other days. Farther north in the Litchfield country, the pink -purple Arethusa may be discovered making rosy patches in the open Cranberry swamps of early June, if you have the patience, clear eye and steady footing necessary to penetrate her haunts; for, like Calypso, these flowers, with nymphs for sponsors, are furtive and elusive, even where they gather in considerable numbers. In middle June the Rose Pogonia or Snake - mouth, bearing a strong resemblance to Arethusa in shape and color, though a smaller flower, is found in the grassy bog meadows from Wakeman's Island all up along the waterways quite through Lonetown. It does not grow in water, but among tufted grasses where threading springs that ooze up, drop by drop, keep its roots moist, — the haunt beloved by the Blue Fringed Gentian of Autumn. SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 141 When you see the weedy -looking sprays of Wild Forget-me-not, then go slowly and you will surely find grass clumps set thick with the slender, nar- row-leaved stems, each holding one, or perhaps two, rosy nodding flowers, the flat lip fringed and crested. If they are newly opened and the wind is blowing over them, a whiff of delicate fragrance will reach you before close contact reveals the whole strength of their perfume that is suggestive of Parma Violets. As you stand quite still, holding a blossom against your face, while you search about with your eyes, you will perhaps discover a trail of pink all across the meadow touching the brushy edge of the bog woods, where a veery is rather calling you to him than warning you away by his shrill alarm -note, whew — whe-ew! and where, in anxious concealment, a low -nesting night heron, the last of a once clamorous tree -top colony, is waiting for your departure to come out, driven by necessity to openly hunt frogs for his greedy brood. Small as this Pogonia is, it adds a rosy color, and becomes a feature in the landscape of the rank marsh meadows of June. Occasionally flowering with Pogonia, but usually later, its blooming season lasting from late June 142 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS CALOPdcON to middle July, comes the Grass Pink or Calopogon of Gray and the earlier botanists. Its first bloom- ing is dated variously in my outdoor journals from June 19 in 1890 to June 28 in 1900, but as there are often ten or a dozen florets on a single stem, in moderate weather two weeks may pass between the opening of the lowest flower to the fading of the topmost on the scape. The name of Grass Pink is decidedly in- appropriate for it, and suggestive of a low- growing plant like the Creeping Phlox, which is also called by the same name locally. Calopo- gon, from* the Greek signify- ing beautiful beard, in reference to its fringed lip, is far more r suitable. J Here and there we find it 1 j following in the wake of Po - gonia ; its slender stalks, a foot or two in height, with long, grass - like leaves, bearing the flowers well above the grass and low growths, to rest against a background of tall Cin- namon and Royal Ferns or Brakes. To find Calopogon playing its part SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 143 broadly in the landscape, we must go down toward the Sea Gardens, where Cat -tail Flags and the coarse leaves of the half -grown Rose Mallow mark the tide channels. One hazy day in the first week of July, Flower Hat and I went to the Sea Gardens together, I for the annual festival of Calopogon, she skep- tically, in order to be convinced that within half a mile of the village Orchids could be found in such quantities as to give their purplish color to an acre of wild growth. Because Nell always objects to standing in the middle of a sandy road with nothing to investigate or nibble, and as the meadow footing was too treacherous for her to cross, we went a-wheel. I prefer walking on a flower hunt, but Flower Hat considered it too slow. That day, however, she learned that it is quicker to walk all the way than to ride part way and carry your bicycle "'cross lots" the other half; for no real flower- hunter, by any chance, ever comes out of a meadow or bit of wood by the way he or she enters, or goes and returns on the same side of a stream, if it be crossable. The meadow, or, rather, the open common, for nothing is fenced there, on each side of the road was white with the flat flower -clusters of Purple- 144 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS stemmed Angelica, topping stout stalks sometimes six feet in height, and of the same general type of growth as Wild Carrot, but more vigorous and rigid throughout and with less compounded leaves. In pushing between these plants, a strong aromatic odor follows the bruising of even a single leaf. Long wands of Colic -root, rising from rosettes of lily-veined leaves, waved their mealy white, bell- shaped blossoms above masses of Brakes, dwarf Wild Roses, and Purple Milkwort, while the Elder Flowers in the tangled background of Silver Birches and Wild Crabs repeated in shrub form the color of the Angelica. We stood upon a long mound, that was the relic of a dyke thrown up years ago to keep the high tides, which sometimes ventured across the beach -crest and down the road, from drowning out the meadows, and looked across the expanse unbroken on either side for a mile or so, save for a few groups of Oaks that made dark islands in an inland sea of summer green. The sun came out, and Flower Hat blinked as she vainly tried to make the coquettish open-work brim of her head- gear shield her eyes; and then, humbly accepting a huge leaf of Cow Parsnip for a parasol, again scanned the landscape. ' SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 145 "Do you see any Orchids?" she asked, after a moment or two. "I Jm sure I don't. Everything is big and common and all huddled together in an overgrown mess. I like the woods and runaway garden things much better. If you find one plant at a time you can keep your presence of mind. To make anything of this jumble of hundreds of everything is like trying to play an unfamiliar page from Tristan on a strange piano with a new maestro standing behind taking your musical measure." I laughed, and merely pointed to a clump of Cinnamon Ferns a dozen feet before us. "Oh!" exclaimed Flower Hat, dropping the Parsnip leaf and starting forward. About these Ferns the Calopogons had gath- ered in a sort of bow-knot, and then wandered off in an erratic course across the open, embroidering the green with cross stitches and fillets of a color neither purple nor pink. Flower Hat gathered a handful of the flower - spikes — there were so many that any moderate picking would not destroy the effectiveness of the picture — and suggested that we should go over into the shade to look at them. "Dainty from tip to toe!" she exclaimed, as she held up a flower -stalk with many triangular J 146 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS buds still tight and trim at the top, while two or three freshly opened flowers at the bottom showed the broad -winged lip exquisitely crested and bearded with orange -yellow and deep pink hairs. "How could you see such a delicate tracery of color amid all that barbaric mass of gold and green that takes twenty tints in the bright sunlight?" she asked. "Partly by a practised eye, partly by intuition, partly by life -long knowledge of the component parts of these early July meadows," I said. "How do you, by glancing at a page of music, trace out a faintly suggested theme amid a thicket of other notes? Each to his craft, that is all." "Why!" she cried presently, "these flowers are set on the stalk somehow upside down! What was a lip in Twayblade is a lid." As I was about to explain the lack of the usual twist in the future seed-vessel that made Calopo- gon wear its chin on its forehead, contrary to family rules, a burst of bird music from a Crab tree overhead made us exchange signals of caution, and pause with bated breath. Robin, grosbeak, purple finch? What bird, keeping the spring ecstacy until midsummer, was pouring forth such song? He was a ventriloquist SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 147 also, for the notes appeared to come from two parts of the tree at once. Instantly Flower Hat was on the alert, her sensitive ear rejoicing in the melody. In spite of the briars which enviously clutched at her rose garland and ribbons, she leaned gradually backward, until her head almost touched the ground, and peered up into the tree. Meanwhile I, by stretching the other way, dis- covered the singer, or, rather, singers — for there were two of them — splendid orchard orioles, brave in chestnut -and -black suits. They were first sing- ing at each other and then swaying sidewise to- ward some unseen object, going through the most remarkable gestures, opening and closing their wings and using them like arms, with all the impressive agony of tenors of the opera. Suddenly they stopped, gave a few scolding notes, launched at each other savagely, then flew to some tall black- berry canes where we could watch them easily, and striking effective attitudes, recommenced their song with frantic vigor. "What can all this be about?" Flower Hat whispered. " Cbercbez la femmef" I answered, pointing to an Elder Bush. "It is too late in the season for courting," she 148 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS replied, at the same time following the direction of my finger with her eyes. "Infant, it is never too late, especially if your early Spring plans have come to grief. Besides, I 'm sure by the frantic hurry that those two birds are in, that they are young widowers in whose elated breasts 'hope is triumphing over experi- ence.'" On the Elder Bush toward which Flower Hat gazed, perched "la femme," in a subdued olive cloak and yellowish petticoat. She scarcely turned her head, yet saw all that was passing, and when the song ended in a pitched battle during which feathers flew, she joined — not the victor, but the vanquished, where he went to plume himself in a distant Crab tree! The next time we went to the Sea Gardens, it was the last week in the same month, which had been a time of such dryness that we could easily drive across the meadows. Flower Hat was still skeptical about Orchids. "Yellow Fringed Orchis, do you say, growing in this withering heat? If you had said that they were in the wet meadows by Time o' Year's woods, where we found the splended purple fringy SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 149 ones last week, I might believe you, but never here," she averred. "Yes, here," I persisted. "Orange and White Fringed and Ragged Green Orchis, too, with its finely cleft cross -shaped lip. Shut your eyes, and don't open them until I say, Now!" "Do be careful not to drive into that boggy pond at the end of Meeker 's ditch in your en- thusiasm," she answered, closing her eyes and grasping my arm as we jolted and bumped from the road across a gully into the open meadow. Beyond, from over the beach crest fringed with fruit -laden Wild Plum Bushes, the vibrating heat rose in sheets above the sand. Angelica was still in flower, and the small, bright, pea-shaped blos- soms of Wild Indigo feathered the open with lemon yellow. But this color paled before the waves of color varying from orange to salmon that closed around the wheels of the chaise after we had driven eastward for a couple of hundred yards. "Now!" I said, "look and see an Orchis land- scape in New England!" For the first and only time in my recollection, Flower Hat was speechless. Each summer two acres in extent are literally overwhelmed and drenched with the splendid color 150 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS of this barbaric orange flower. Yet its haunt has already been encroached upon by the onion -raiser and small farmer who, with growing intelligence, finds the deep rich soil well worth redeeming, until, I fear, another half dozen years will see this flower driven to a few uncultivatable borders. The plant -stalk itself sometimes grows three feet in height, with lance -shaped leaves and a flower - spike of often thirty florets with beard -shaped, fringed lips and long spurs. It is of firm growth, and yet, like so many plants of slightly brackish or marshy soil, loses quality when picked, often refusing to revive in water. Here and there I pointed out to Flower Hat a spike or two of the White Fringed Orchis, which looks like a small al- bino brother of the Orange, and also a few stray plants of the dull green Ragged Orchis, with a cross -shaped cleft lip. This last has a weedy look and is without any of the dainty fragility of the Fringed SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 151 Orchises; consequently it must be classed with the botanist's flowers of purely intellectual interest. " My eyes are blind with color," said Flower Hat, at the end of fifteen minutes. "I will believe anything you tell me after this, and I 'm going to buy a soft felt hat with a brim that will turn down all round like a cowboy's!" Thus was her conversion completed, though she never wholly abandoned flowery hats; and for a reward I took her for our next outing to Time o' Year's wood to spend the day with Ferns, and to see, as she begged, "a nice cool Orchid in a shady place, within sound of running water." When August comes, the reign of the Orchid tribe is well-nigh over, and from this month on- ward it is represented by the group of Ladies' Tresses, the slender plants of wet meadows and grass -lands, whose narrow leaves give them at a little distance the appearance of some odd flower- ing grass or of a delicate white flax. If, however, you pick a stalk, round which the florets are set spirally so that the spike appears to be twisted, you will find the tribal likeness, the crystal white texture, and the delicate earthy fragrance. 152 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS Of half a dozen species, two grow plentifully hereabout, one in the drier grass, one in the deep bog meadows, loved by Pogonia. The first, the Slender Ladies' Tresses, a fragile little plant with two plantain -like ground leaves, and a slender stalk a foot or more in length, around the top of which the flowers appear to be wound, like garlands about a May -pole, is abundant in August and September. The other, called Nodding Ladies' Tresses, stronger of growth and more fragrant, is the farewell Orchid of the year, having Asters for its companions; and when its moist haunts are sheltered, it often lingers into late October, in company with Fringed Gen- tians, and the fresh growth of Meadow Ferns that springs up after the Summer heat. There is a boulder -scattered ridge that rises from Time o' Year's river to the next range of hills. Between these boulders, time out of mind, great trees grew that have fallen into decay and been replaced by another and yet another gener- ation, so that all between the rocks is in dark shadow, and deep with wood -mold. The granite fragments are cloaked with Mosses, Polypodies, and Liverworts, while the rarer Spleen worts cling to where the dripping rocks interrupt a spring's course, and every dead stump and fallen bough SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 153 is fantastically trimmed with Lichens and fungus growths. This ridge, or "the mountain," as the hillside folk call it, is reached by the Tree -bridge, a Chestnut trunk hewn level on one side and thrown across the narrow mouth of the ravine through which the river flows. The first impres- sion on entering the wood, to which the bridge is the only pass across the river, is that it is the realm of Ferns alone. Flower Hat dropped quickly upon the near- est rock, and resting backward on one hand, declared: "I thought the meadows were dazzling enough, but here I posi- tively can distinguish nothing. It seems like surg- ing waves of green, breaking over a coast of green rocks, with green spray rising in the air." SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS "Look where your hand is resting among the leaves," I said. There on a sloping bit between two rocks, so steep that the earth could not have lodged except for the twigs and wood debris, that made a pocket, nestled rosettes of round green leaves netted with white veins. From each tuft grew a shaft ending in a cone-shaped spike of small, pouched flowers, that glistened in the light with the crystal white- ness of the Indian Pipe, tinged with green shadows. "There is the nice cool Orchid in a shady place within sound of running SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 155 water, and its name suits its haunt," I added wickedly, — "Rattlesnake Plantain, from the mot- tlings on the leaves, their habit of growth, and the reputed cure afforded by the plant for the bite of the reptile." "Are rattlesnakes ever found here?" said Flower Hat, looking anxiously at the numerous holes be- neath the rocks, which really had a suggestive ap- pearance. "It is exactly the sort of place where that young school-teacher, who was out flower- hunting, backed into a den of the reptiles, and Elsie Venner stared them out of countenance and rescued him. — No? " "It is certainly cool here," she continued, "and the river sound makes it seem even chilly. But I am not quite reconciled to calling such a pale mite of a flower an Orchid. I cannot rid myself of the feeling that the word implies something magnificent in itself, or rich in its massed coloring like the Calopogon and Orange Fringed Orchis in the Sea Gardens. The Lily- leaved Twayblade made a pic- ture, but there is surely no such quality to this homely flower." As she spoke, her eyes, now focused to the shade, again rested on the mat of plants. The light was concentrated upon them, and in the 156 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS short interval they had seemingly moved into the foreground, quite filling it, while the Ferns, Mosses and boulders, retreating up the slope out of range, became tributary, merely a frame to enhance the Orchid's quaintness. VI POISONOUS PLANTS OUCH not, taste not " is written against but com- paratively few plants of the United States. Among the four thousand and odd species, either natives, introduced weeds, or garden escapes, growing between Newfoundland, the southern boundary of Virginia, the Atlantic Ocean and the region of the Great Plains, not more than thirty can be asserted posi- tively to contain elements of danger to man or to beast, from either the tasting or handling. Small as the list of the condemned is, it is none the less important that it should be made public, and each name stowed away carefully in the memory with the other danger signals of existence. It also seems very strange that these forbidden plants have not been presented as a group, the only satisfactory way to memorize them, in any of the popular botanies. In fact, it was not until '57 158 POISONOUS PLANTS three years ago that the United States Department of Agriculture, itself continually reminded of the importance of the matter by reports of the real and oftentimes merely alleged cases of plant poison- ing sent to it, gathered such statistics as were provable, and through the medium of a Farmers' Bulletin, V. R. Chestnut's concise summary of the "Thirty Poisonous Plants of the United States" was issued. But widely as the pamphlet was distributed, it has failed to reach many of the very people to whom it would be of the greatest use, — the increasing band of nature lovers, tak- ing the wood path perhaps for the first time, to find bird, flower, and fern in their haunts, and also the ardent amateur farmer, both male and female. Flower Hat never dreamed of evil, when one day in following me along a narrow road between wet meadows and woods, she broke off a branch from a harmless -looking shrub to use for brushing away the gnats. In a few hours, however, her mischievous gray eyes were closed tight, her face looked as if it had been in collision with a hive of very angry bees, and Poison Sumac was literally branded in her memory. Poison Ivy, with its hairy climbing stem and compound leaves, growing dis- POISONOUS PLANTS 159 tinctly in threes, had hitherto been the only plant that said "Hands off!" to her. A man of affairs, also the maker of a country home, imbued with the love of wild nature and the desire to reestablish the plants that had once lived in a strip of lovely river woods and wild meadows that he owned, set out many hundred plants of Mountain Laurel and Wild Rhododendron one Autumn. A mild day early the next Spring made him think that his young Jersey cows would enjoy an airing outside of the protected winter stock -yard; so he dropped the bars between the cultivated and the wild. The cows trooped out eagerly enough, and seized the evergreen Laurels, the only green sprigs in sight. In a few hours, my friend, as an agriculturist, was blaming his thoughtlessness and regretting the despoiling of his shrubs. That night the fine young cows were discovered lying on their stable floor, seemingly blind, breathing with labor, and all in some of the various stages of drowsiness and stupor that precede death by poison. Then that young man, after he had returned from a four -mile race on horseback for the veteri- nary surgeon, and had stayed up all night obeying his peremptory orders, buried his best cow the next 160 POISONOUS PLANTS day. In his capacity of stock-breeder, he then vowed that he would learn something about the poisonous plants of his own country. Even Time o' Year, who had handled the "Touch Nots" from boyhood, confessed not long since, " Nothin' used ter poison me, and now for some years back Ivy and Sumac both does, and I can't walk on the near side of a brush heap where Swamp Sunflower is drying without sneez- ing and coughing fit to choke;" showing that even he, to the manor born, did not understand the workings of these acrid plant juices, or know that to be once immune does not mean always to be so, for in middle and late life many succumb who were invincible. As it happens, nearly all of these plants are dis- tinctive and easy of identification, while the blos- soms and foliage of many place them among the flowers of landscape value. To clearly memorize the names and attributes of such of them as are likely to injure either ourselves or the cattle grazing about our homes, it is best to divide them in two groups: the tribes of Touch Not and Taste Not. First, let it be distinctly understood that those plants are excluded from the list from which poi- sonous or narcotic drugs are distilled, but which, in POISONOUS PLANTS l6l themselves, are not directly poisonous unless con- sumed in such large quantities that the taking of them could not be regarded as accidental. Prob- ably the greatest amount of suffering comes to the novice in field lore from the first of the groups. The second class is fatal to open-mouthed children whose chief test of anything is by taste, and also to the "stranger within our gates," who is constantly eating unknown roots, berries, or mushrooms from a fancied resemblance to some edible species of his own country. The Taste Nots are also espe- cially dangerous to the cattle -raiser of the Great Plains, who, in the poisonous plants constantly found in grazing lands, has presented to him many knotty problems. THE TRIBE OF "TOUCH NOT" We associate the word Sumac with rocky hill- sides covered by abruptly branching shrubs varying in height from dwarf bushes to small trees, that wear in Summer either shiny or velvety compound green leaves of many leaflets, and thick pyramids of yel- lowish green flowers, held erect at the ends of branches. In Autumn berry and leaf rival each other in an intensity of crimson color. Yet three POISONOUS PLANTS of the nomad tribe of Touch Not are harbored by this family, and bring unmerited disgrace upon the heads of innocent brethren. Poison Ivy, Poison Oak, and Poison Sumac, or Elder, as it is locally called, are true Sumacs, and yet possess differences which should prevent any danger of confused identity. The Poison Ivy is a vine entirely too common from Canada to Florida, and from the Atlantic coast to Utah. It is made up of a tough woody stem, thickly bearded with hairy air -roots by which it climbs over rocks, fences and to the tops of high trees, with leaves composed of three leaflets only, and wears in June loose clusters of dull greenish flowers growing from the leaf -axils, soon replaced by glassy, opaque berries of a similar hue. Thus equipped, it pursues its career of mingled beauty and vice. Being myself as yet immune to its poisoned breath and touch, I cannot but dwell upon its beauty, for it rivals the five-leaved Vir- POISONOUS PLANTS 163 ginia Creeper in being one of the two most truly decorative vines of New England, making up what it lacks in grace of growth by an abrupt vigor. It covers stone heaps and tumble -down walls, lends new foliage to half-dead trees, and turns fence -posts into grotesque plant forms ; for when it reaches the top of a support and can climb no further, it promptly abandons its trailing habits and turns into a shrub, sticking out short arms in every direction until, in some places, one may find miles of rail fences with every post decorated by this bushy crown. The berries, though not sufficiently attractive to be dangerous to humanity, are eaten 1 64 POISONOUS PLANTS by many winter birds, and the seeds so scattered establish the vine more firmly each year, for the only method taken by townships to eradicate the plague is to cut it annually with a stub scythe where it grows on the highways, a proceeding that merely increases its strength of root. When Autumn comes, Poison Ivy chooses its colors of mellow yellows, salmon - pink, bronze and crimson with discretion, individual vines often keeping distinct tones, some always turning plain yellow, and others varying from pink to crim- son without a single yellow tinge. Alack, how we shall miss this vine in the landscape when twentieth century magic perhaps shall have taught us to outwit it! So much for beauty. Now for the bad side of its character. Poison Ivy is full of an acrid oil, which does not easily evaporate upon the drying of the plant that generates it, and which, like other oils, does not dissolve in water. Conse- quently when it is liberated from the leaf tissue, — and the merest touch will do it — this oil at once permeates the skin of its victim and spreads its irritation on the surface, and not through the blood as was once supposed. To the susceptible a tin- gling of the skin may be the first warning that POISONOUS PLANTS 165 they have even been in the vicinity of the plant; for to absolutely bruise the leaf is unnecessary with those easily affected, a mere whiff of the oil, slightly volatile as it is, being sufficient to trans- mit the poison. The tingling sensation is soon succeeded by watery blisters set deep in the tough- ened cuticle. These blisters are often thickest be- tween the fingers, behind the ears, or in folds of skin where the oil remains undisturbed. Of course it is best to avoid Poison Ivy, but it is hardly possible so to do if one desires to learn more of nature than can be seen from a piazza or from a neatly graveled garden walk. In fact, even there this vine may be found sneaking its way along an arbor, where a myrtle warbler, seeking shelter on a wintry day, has dropped the seed. So, after having done your best to shun the vine with a hairy, woody stem, three leaflets and greenish white berries, try to rid the skin as quickly as pos- sible of the oil when once it has touched you. If you are by a roadside or in a field, take a handful of dust or fresh earth and rub the spot of contact thoroughly. Water will avail little in removing such a persistent oil. This is an invention of my own for absorbing the oil, that I use with great success upon my field companions, Flower Hat 1 66 POISONOUS PLANTS having many times been saved by it. Then, when you can reach a drugshop, have prepared a saturate solution of sugar of lead in seventy -five parts alco- hol (alcohol cuts oil) to twenty -five parts water. Be sure that this prescription is marked poison and ornamented with a red skull and cross-bones, before you take a clean bit of cotton, sop your afflicted spots with the solution and put the rest away for future use. Sugar of lead is deadly when taken internally, but as an unfailing remedy for the horrible irritation of Ivy poison it is a clear but exceptional case of two wrongs making a right. The double qualities of beauty and evil possessed by this plant were truly if sentimentally summed up in a poem written by a North countryman, who once worked for us, his mind being more ready to immortalize weeds in legends than his fingers to eradicate them from the paths. Not being familiar with the language of the Sagas, in which the verses were given me, I asked for an interpretation. The Poet willingly dropped his hoe, clasped his hands, and, choking with the emotional memory of his recent and first experience in poi- soning by a gorgeous and deceitful vine that he had plucked and brought home over his shoulder, he began in a whisper, which rapidly arose to a shriek : POISONOUS PLANTS 167 "Once there was a woman, very beautiful, tall, slender and bending. She had a lovely color in her face and wild eyes that shot fire and were gray and green and golden at one time. Her robes wreathed about her and were more beautifully gar- nished than the Spring fields. But she was false! Then for her punishment she was turned into a vine, wearing in its season the colors that her eyes had flashed, — a vine so beautiful that all men desire to possess it, but deadly to the touch. Though some are of such strength and good blood that they at first may handle it, yet they know not when their hour of trouble may come! " Of the other two Sumacs, the Poison Oak, or California Poison Sumac, occupies the same place in the west as the Poison Ivy does in the eastern part of the country. Its leaves are thicker and more rounded, but its manner of poisoning as well as the remedies for it are the same. The third, the Poison Sumac, though not having found its way as far west and not generally as common as the Poison Ivy, is doubly dangerous because it is less known and its poison is even more intense, often producing the symptoms of erysipelas. This plant, locally known as Poison Elder, Poison Ash or Poison i68 POISONOUS PLANTS Dogwoodr is found sometimes as a low bush, only a few feet in height, sometimes as an uneven tree of twenty feet or more. Its leaves are compounded of many leaflets, 9-15, like those of other Sumacs, though these leaflets are less pointed and suggest those of a young Ash. Also, the leaflets do not lie flat to the central stalk, but are keeled, as it were, and curve up in a winged manner. In the early season the leaf stems and middle veins are a pale pink; this is an important point to note when the fruit is absent. The ber- ries of the Poison Su - mac are greenish white and hang down in loose bunches like stunted frost grapes. The berries of the harmless Sumacs are red, and held erect in solid pyr- amids. The Poison Sumac grows invariably in damp, if not absolutely marshy ground. The harmless Sumacs prefer dry and rocky soil. It is well for Nature students to POISONOUS PLANTS 1 69 search out this shrub and identify it in its haunt, for future avoidance, as it is one of the decorative bushes of Autumn whose leaves work sad mis- chief through being gathered to decorate houses and churches, or for pressing. Many of the hillside folk call it Bush Ash, and deny the poisonous qualities which they have never personally experienced. One day when I was re- turning from a Lonetown excursion with the chaise full of the glistening leaves of the Smooth Sumac, a " berry woman " with whom I had often had dealings stopped me — a very unusual proceeding — to exclaim, "You '11 be p'isoned blind with that Shumac, sure as yer alive." I explained its innocence to her, — reasons, red berries and all, — and warned her that a large bundle of branches which she was carrying to decorate the school -house for a harvest -home supper, was chiefly composed of the true Poison Sumac. No, I was mistaken. What she had was "just Bush Ash." She 'd always picked it when she was a girl; a peddler told her the shiny kind was poison, and his mother was an herb doctor, and so he knew. Why, anybody could see that it was the poison that made the leaves shine ; it all lay in a varnish on top ! She proceeded on her way, but two weeks after- 170 POISONOUS PLANTS ward I learned from Time o' Year that the poor woman had nearly died of Sumac poisoning. All of which proved that since the days when she had touched it freely, she had passed into middle life, that indefinite toll-gate on the road which had robbed her of the immunity of earlier days. In addition to these three Sumacs there are two plants, "garden escapes," which contain both acrid, milky juice and berries that are highly poi- sonous. These are the Caper Spurge and its brother, which is sold in catalogues under the name of "Snow on the Mountain;" both are re- lated to the Cypress Spurge of old gardens, and resemble it in the shape of the flowers. The Caper Spurge has small, greenish yellow flowers followed by showy, caperlike, three -seeded fruit. Snow on the Mountain is an annual weed of the Plains. Under cultivation it grows two or three feet in height, its lower leaves being green, oval, and pointed, while the upper, clustering around the flowers, are distinctly edged with white. Its milky juice is so intensely acrid and blisters the skin so readily that Texan stock -raisers have been known to use it for branding cattle instead of the customary hot irons. This plant should be carefully excluded from gardens, and dropped from POISONOUS PLANTS IJI seedsmen's catalogues, for I have seen the fingers of little children terribly scarred from picking it. It is also a menace to bee-keepers, for a little of the pollen will render honey uneatable. Several of the Goldenrods and Ragweeds have pollen which, when inhaled, has an irritating effect upon those liable to hay fever and catarrh ; and the Swamp Sunflower of our waterways has earned its common title of Sneezeweed from causing, by its pollen and dried blossoms, an irritation so mis- chievous as to make it akin to a poison. Every one knows this cheerful, Sunflower-like plant, — with its thick, lance-shaped leaves, the flowers in a tufted center surrounded with toothed, wide -ended yellow rays, — for it follows the water- ways from Canada to the Gulf, and finds enough moisture to sustain it even in Arizona. Cattle may be affected by eating the young plants, or the flowers dried in hay, the result being a sort of asthmatic giddiness, and sometimes, in the case of young animals, death from convulsions. THE TRIBE OF "TASTE NOT" Those plants should rank as most important that directly threaten the life of man. Among 172 POISONOUS PLANTS these the Death Cup and Fly Amanita, Water and Poison Hemlock will stand first, second, third and fourth, Jimson Weed fifth, as poisonous plants that are eaten from their resemblance to edible species of their various families, and which there- fore are more to be feared than those plants eaten through a momentary attraction of fruit, or from the careless habit of chewing random leaves and twigs. The Fly Amanita and the Death Cup (Ama- nita pballoides) are primarily among the most con- spicuous as well as the most deadly of fungi. The majority of the family are fatally poisonous, and every year sees the list lengthened of those who have died from eating some member of it. In spite of Hamilton Gibson's delightful book upon "Edible Fungi" and Professor G. F. Atkin- son's recent exhaustive "Studies of American Fungi, Mushrooms Edible, Poisonous," etc., I would cau- tion the novice to content himself with gathering the common Meadow Mushroom only. This is easy to place, with its nutty odor, white or slightly smoky top; pink to brown gills, according to the freshness of the plant, and a stem dwindling just below ground, and NEVER set in a cup- like socket. I should advise him to let all other fungi entirely POISONOUS PLANTS 173 alone, no matter how edible some species may be under proper conditions. The more or less distinct cup -like setting to the stem is a good mark of identification to the fatal Death Cup, for the nov- ice. Let him avoid it. Fly Amanita is the most picturesque and strik- ing of our earth -growing fungi, and where it ap- pears in profusion, as it does under the evergreens in our home grounds during the Autumn months, it is a plant of decided landscape value, introducing gamboge, orange, and even vermilion into deep shade which, the season through, knows no other colors than the green of Ferns and Partridge Vine, with the brown of leaf-mold. This Amanita is stout of stem and cap. I gath- ered some specimens last September that stood a foot high, and measured fourteen inches across the white gilled cap which varied through all shades of yellow to red and was covered with corklike warts. The swelled, scaly base of the stalk does not take a clearly marked cup -shape, as in kindred forms. Fortunately, however, there is no chance of mis- taking this gorgeous creature for the safe and Cin- derella-like Meadow Mushroom. The plant is a deadly poison, whose juices are used in Europe as the basis of fly poisons, and when eaten by man 174 POISONOUS PLANTS it means almost certain death by heart paralysis. Cattle are also affected by it, and it is unwise either to handle the plants or to risk inhaling their fumes while fresh or the spore -dust when dry. I was made unpleasantly aware of the toxic qualities of Fly Amanita while taking the accompanying photograph at close range on a damp day, and thus spending half an hour or so in company of a double score of the fungi. But even this rank Amanita is less likely to cause trouble than its smaller, paler kinsman of the distinctly cupped stem — the Death Cup. This has a smooth, satiny top, which may be either white, spotted, or tinted yellow; it also has white gills and a white stem. As a whole, at a casual glance, it does not look unlike a large Meadow Mushroom, and for this reason is doubly dangerous. It also sometimes strays from its proper wood haunts, to lawns and meadow edges. Remember the fatal cup at the root, and the white gills. Remember also that a mere fragment is enough to kill a man, and beware of it, for there is no rank taste nor odor to give warning, and the poison does not begin to work until eight or nine hours after it has been eaten. Then all care is unavailing. Two plants of the Carrot tribe follow in their POISONOUS PLANTS 175 turn, the Water and the Poison Hemlock, well known to the ancients. The Water Hemlock is the commoner of the two. It is a smooth, straight herb, and has a spindle-shaped, perennial root, a hollow stem, much-divided com- pound leaves, and flat clusters of white flowers of the Wild Carrot 176 POISONOUS PLANTS and Parsnip type. It grows in wet places, and is therefore likely to be eaten by children who are hunting in Spring for the roots of Sweet Cicely. In the United States alone this plant destroys many human victims annually, besides doing untold injury to cattle that drink from pools poisoned by its de- caying roots. The Poison Hemlock proper has finer Parsley - like leaves and a biennial root; its stem is purplish and spotted, thus tending to confuse it with the Purple -stemmed Angelica. This Hemlock yields from its seeds and from the leaves at flowering time an alkaloid poison called conine, a drug well known to the ancients, and which furnished the death draught of Socrates. The dried seeds also cause mischief, as they are sometimes gathered by mistake for Anise. The fifth plant, Jimson (Jamestown) Weed, or Stramonium, belongs to the Nightshade, or, as it is now called, the Potato family, a tribe contain- ing plants of diverse attributes good and evil — the Tomato, Potato, Tobacco, Henbane and all the Nightshades — of which the European species yielding Belladonna is the most deadly. Common Stramo- nium is a rank plant of waste places, deserted back gardens and ash heaps, and therefore has many local POISONOUS PLANTS 177 nicknames —Thorn-apple, from its prickly seed- pods, Stinkweed and Jamestown Lily. It is also the "White Man's Plant" of the Indians. Near at hand Jimson Weed is an unlovely herb four or five feet high, with coarse leaves and heavy - scented white, five -ridged flowers of the tubular form of the Morning -Glory. At a distance it be- comes one of the boldest of landscape plants, its great white blossoms standing out with startling effect from amid the dirt and confusion of its sur- roundings. Children sometimes eat the seeds or suck the sickishly sweet nectar, and cattle are injured by the leaves, which oftentimes find their way into fodder and hay. Bittersweet, Wood, or Climb- ing Nightshade are the names given to a woody climber, also belonging to the Potato tribe. This vine, seldom growing more than eight or ten feet in length, is commonly seen from Massachusetts west- ward to Ohio, among the tan- gled shrubbery that follows brooks and ditches, though in the Lonetown region I have 178 POISONOUS PLANTS often found it trailing over stone fences in com- paratively dry fields. It has coarse, thin leaves of twc patterns — a custom of many herbs and trees, from the Convolvulus to the Sassafras — the lower leaves being of a strangely divided heart-shaped form, the upper spear-like. The purple flowers, suggesting the type of the Potato blossom, are followed by loose clusters of clear, bright red berries, which, though of a bittersweet flavor, are very attractive to children and are poisonous if eaten in any quantity. Black Nightshade, a near relative of this climber, is an annual herb two feet high, often found in old gardens and in cultivated soil that has been neg- lected. It has ovate leaves with waved edges, a POISONOUS PLANTS 179 small white flower of the typical Nightshade pat- tern, and round, black, juicy berries that cause cramps and other unpleasantness to the human consumer. The plant itself should also be kept out of the reach of the smaller animals, such as sheep and calves. A curious fact concerning some cultivated plants of the Potato family is that, while certain portions may be edible, other parts of the same plant are poisonous. Thus the tuberous roots of Potatoes are edible, but the seed -pods, looking like little green Tomatoes, are injurious, while with Tomatoes it is the fruit -like seed -pod that is eaten. Pokeweed is another rather poisonous plant, growing almost across the entire continent in moist places or where the drainage of compost and refuse heaps has enriched the ground. It is also locally called Pigeon Berry, Garget, or Red -ink Plant. ISO POISONOUS PLANTS This succulent herb, with reddish purple stems, large coarsely veined leaves and long sprays of small white flowers which droop like the blossoms of the Choke Cherry, springs from a tough, perennial root and in a few months will often grow to a height of eight feet. As the season advances and the flowers are followed by berries, at first green, then passing through red to a purple -black, Poke weed gradually leaves the procession of weeds, and devel- ops decided picturesque qualities, filling the corners of fields and pastures with its richly -colored groups, and reaching over gray stone walls and old fences to dangle its fruit by the roadside. The fresh shoots of this plant are sometimes cooked by coun- try folk in lieu of Asparagus. Great care, however, is necessary in the preparation thereof, and not a fragment of the root must be used, as it pos- sesses strong medicinal properties, acting as a vio- lent emetic, causing much distress, and even death, when it has been eaten by mistake for Artichoke or Horse-radish. Though birds eat the berries quite freely, they are believed to be poisonous to humanity. False Hellebore, the swamp plant with crumpled lily-like leaves and green flowers, that we found growing with the Skunk Cabbage and Adder's POISONOUS PLANTS l8l Tongue by the brook in early Spring, also carries poison in its berry, leaf, and root. It is harmful to chickens, horses, cattle, and man, certain people being especially prone to gather its young shoots and roots to use as "greens" in Spring — a time when all such growths are difficult to identify by the untutored, and are therefore always to be avoided. The pretty purple -pink Corncockle, or Rose Campion of old rf^JKU^ gardens, has now become a noxious cJb&J/WvJ weed> to be up- rooted wherever grain is grown. Though the whole plant contains an irritant poison, the seed does the most mischief when care- lessly mixed with wheat, ground into flour or min- gled in any quantity with other grains or with fod- der. The rough black seed- coverings are easily detected, however, and wheat or rye seed having a sprinkling of them should invariably be rejected. 1 82 POISONOUS PLANTS Of herbs, shrubs and trees that affect grazing cattle more or less, there are twelve species, all of them of conspicuous growth. Among these are the Dwarf, Purple and Wyoming Larkspurs of the middle and extreme west, the first wearing blue or white flowers in Spring, the second beautiful deep blue blossoms in Summer, and the last, particularly common in the Montana grazing country, showing a single wand of intensely blue flowers, from April to July, according to location. The injury done to stock by the Woolly and Stemless Loco Weeds of the Great Plains has caused immense bounties to be paid for their ex- termination. Through these plants horses, more frequently than range cattle, suffer from what is apparently a slow wasting disease, ending in death, as if by starvation. A similar poison is contained in the closely related Rattlebox, a rough, hairy herb of the Pea Family, whose small yellow flowers bloom all Summer, followed by short, black pods in which the seeds can be heard to rattle. The range of the plant is westward, from the Atlantic seaboard, and it is quite common in sandy and dry soil here in Connecticut. The Heath tribe distributes a poison particularly affecting the respiration, in Mountain Laurel, Small POISONOUS PLANTS 183 Laurel or Lambkill, Rhododendron, Staggerbush, and Branch Ivy or Calfkill. Staggerbush is a low shrub growing south of Connecticut, with thick leaves and handsome clusters of white, blueberry - shaped flowers. Branch Ivy, with saw - toothed evergreen leaves, and inconspicuous white flowers having a nauseating odor, is unknown here, and is only troublesome in the Alleghanies be- tween southern Georgia and West Virginia. Lastly comes Black Wlto ctfe fifty Cherry, a graceful tree, that has stepped out of its native forest in the Middle Atlantic States to saunter along roadways, following fences across lots and quenching its thirsty roots at the pasture springs. In May and June it waves its glossy green leaves and fragrant white flower -sprays on every side, in early Autumn replacing these with brilliant foli- age and bunches of pungent, juicy black cherries. Yet a fatal sort of beauty has Black Cherry, for, owing to that very quality and to the ex- cellence of its fruit for compounding the delect- 1 84 POISONOUS PLANTS able cordial called Cherry Bounce, few people dream of the mischief it may do to cattle, until they are taught by at least one fatal experience. The green and growing leaves and branches are harmless, but when broken by the wind, as often happens, or in any way left to wither in a place where cattle can eat them, they become a source of danger. When cattle eat either withered leaves or branches, sickness always follows and frequently death, from paralysis of the lungs caused by the prussic acid in the tree. This same acid is what gives the pleasant and harmless flavor to the fruit juice, but at the same time, if the pits are swal- lowed by children and the kernels digested, the re- sult is sometimes fatal. Birds devour these berries in quantities, but, as can plainly be seen, they digest the pulp alone and the pit is passed unchanged. So much for the poisonous plants, few in num- ber, easy to be identified, to be neither touched nor tasted, but visited in their haunts. While, at the safe distance that knowledge spreads between us and them, we may enjoy the better part of their dual natures as, blended with worthier stuffs, they weave their varied patterns and hues into the end- less garment of the Magician. VII THE FANTASIES OF FERNS IN the old flower lan- guage, the Fern was the symbol of sincerity. In the wood language, the mystic speech of the Magician, the Fern stands for silence. Are not these interpretations the same? The Fern is a voiceless sentinel of the silent woodlands; it has no flower to draw to it the hum of insects. Around the margins, or following the veins of its fronds, gather the intangible spores scarce deserving the name of seed till, in a further stage of development, they generate the dual forms which mutually perpetuate the race. 185 1 86 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS The Fern does not appeal directly to insect or man through a specialized color, or perfume. The wind passing through the trees of the forest, or among the reeds of the marshes, moves them to seeming articulate speech, but it tosses the heavily massed banks of Ferns, and sweeps the brake jungles on the wild commons, swaying them to and fro, while the silence that follows their motion is as deep as when the pad -footed cat hurries over soft turf, springs noiselessly, misses its quarry, and crouches once more, — to the eye a bewilderment of unheard action. From the very circumstances of its evolution and growth, the Fern is more aloof than the flowering plants and also lacks the personal attributes which have given familiar names to blossoming things. These varied attributes have led flowers through the gates of poetry into the more serious realm of prose, until they not only have become a part of literature, but have a literature all their own, while their hold on household love increases like their race. Not so with Ferns. They have scanty litera- ture and few gracious names. Their tribal Golden Age had passed before man came to read their meaning. Back in the time of ancient life they THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 187 were evolved, and held sway when fishes were the highest type of animals. Then gigantic forms of Ferns, Lycopods and Horsetails, did their work of absorbing the carbonic acid gas from the sur- charged air, and transforming it into mighty forests, the only terrestial verdure. This work complete, the atmosphere purified, these forests were in their turn submerged, turned slowly to vast beds of coal, and higher plant forms appeared above them. Though the Fern tribe as a modified type remains, it has dwindled in numbers and stature until the extinct species far exceed the living, so that the tribe that once was all in all, now holds a little fiftieth part of the earth's flora, and is a mere back- ground, as it were, for the varied forms, glowing colors, and soft perfumes which blend to dower the flowering plants with the fascination of personality. "I wonder why Ferns are such nameless sort of things, not nearly so livable and lovable as flowers," said Flower Hat, as she leaned against a sloping rock, cushioned with moss and Polypody, cast aside her hat among a mass of Christmas Ferns, and rumpled her hair after a fashion of her own "to let it breathe," as she said, all the time fanning idly with a broad Fern frond. 1 88 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS It was the afternoon in early August when we had gone to Time o' Year's woods, crossing Tree- bridge to find Rattlesnake Plantain and then to have a Fern hunt through haunts that were in part both moist and dry, continuing along the grassy meadow edges and strip of bog that, together with the river, bounded the woods on three sides. At that moment we sat resting, listening to the sound of the water coming down the rocky glen, — its voice deepened and strengthened by two days of steady rain, — and looking at the graceful draperies that the Ferns were casting about the rocks and trailing down the river banks, heaping their gauzy fabric so recklessly near the water's edge that it seemed as though a breeze would blow it in, while the long, pliant Lady Ferns, drooping, covered each other's roots until they had all the sin- uous grace of vines. "Of course it's be- cause so few Ferns have easy remember- able English names, and the lack of the name, I suppose, is because Ferns have THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 189 no flowers with color and shape to suggest it," con- tinued Flower Hat. "We used to go on 'botany walks' when I was at school near Hartford. In those days even, Ferns seemed such dumb plants; and, to my obtuse mind, there were only three kinds. One was Maidenhair, which is easy to remember because it is quite unlike anything else. Another, the Climbing Fern, with scalloped leaves, is almost all rooted out by this time — the kind that twists its stalk around the wood Goldenrods and weeds in moist places; the vine sometimes ends in a spray covered with rusty dust, looking like seaweed or leaves that had gone wrong. The third was the Walking Fern, which grew high up on rocky places; a Fern that we had to scramble on our hands and knees to find. And when we found it, every one cried 'Ah! Oh!' yet it was n't much of a Fern after all, even though it had a reasonable name. It was merely a tuft of lengthened -out leaves, each one stretching as far as it could, then dipping down to root at the end, and start another plant, like a sort of vegetable measuring - worm. The seed-dust, spores, or whatever you call them, were scattered zigzag over the under side of some of the leaves, for all the world like the caraway seeds on cookies. These three Ferns I could re- THE FANTASIES OF FERNS member, but all the rest seemed alike to me, com- mon Ferns. "Lately, however, since fate has decided that I must live in the real country for more than half the year, and I 've taken to following you * thorough brake, thorough briar ' like an obedient spaniel, I 've noticed a great deal of expression in these same com- mon Ferns. They seem to have little ways all their own, and meanings, too, if we could read them, nothing wonderful, nothing really grand like what the trees whisper to one, only something airy and mysterious, — scraps of songs without words which they think to themselves perhaps." w< If trees are Nature's thoughts or dreams, And witness how her great heart yearns, Then she has only shown, it seems, Her lightest fantasies in ferns,'" I quoted, "and if you wish to see a score or more of these common Ferns in their haunts, and call each one by a name easy to remember, this is the season, for all Ferns have reached perfection now; and this is the place also, for here in a half-mile circle through Time o' Year's country, grow most of the familiar landscape Ferns which you would find if you tramped New England over. THE FANTASIES OF FERNS IQI "Oh, you are eager — forward, march! Take a few steps, stand by that great rock and look down. Is not this place in truth haunt of the Ferns ? " Around the feet and below on the river edge, grow the great fronds of the Osmundas, or Flow- ering Ferns, so called because their fruit is borne on partly or wholly separate stalks from the green leafage. There are three of these, swamp Ferns, growing in de- cided crowns, with fronds often six feet in length, the largest of their tribe as we know it in New Eng- land. They are all landscape Ferns beside, upon which we must depend in late Spring and Summer for the dense jun- gle-like effects in woods and shaded road -edges, which the Brake, with its much-divided, I Q2 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS spreading leaves gives to the open common and drier wild pastures. In Spring this "flowering" fern clan is the first to assert itself, for it is their sturdy, wool-mittened fists that push through the mold, under sheltered banks, in company with Wake Robin, Anemones, and Violets, and the unfolding of the heavy, succu- lent leafage is a charming feature of the Spring woods and roadside runnels. Of the three, Clayton's and the Cinnamon Fern are the most conspicuous in their early stages. When Clayton's Fern unfolds, the small fronds (as Fern leaves are called) are wholly green, but with the taller fronds, midway up, the color is interrupted by a few pairs of fertile leaflets, or pinna , as they are known in Fern lore; then the green leaves are resumed again, and continue to the summit. From this manner of bearing the fruit midway, Michaux called it the Interrupted Fern, a most tangible name, and one that suggests itself the moment the eye rests upon the plant. After Mid- summer, when the spores are ripe, and their cases turn dark, these fertile leaves have a shabby look, and generally die away, giving place to great, palm- like tufts of the broader, sterile fronds. THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 1 93 Cinnamon Fern carries its fertility wholly on separate spikes, green and woolly at first, then taking a cinnamon hue after the spores have been shed. This tint both supplies the plant's name and gives a warm color to the masses of coarse green fronds that, springing in crowns from a vig- orous, deep -set rootstock, often take possession of entire swamp meadows in such numbers that they are mown down in late August, together with the coarse grass, for cattle bedding. Regalis, the Royal Fern, is more dainty and clear-cut of leaf than the other two, and loves the water. Here down upon the river edge it is now growing in fresh luxuriance, the outer fronds dip- ping in the stream that mirrors them. The fertile leaflets are on the top of some of the much -di- vided fronds. At first they are green; then, when the spores are shed, they turn first snuff -colored, then dark brown, and finally wither away, so that its greenery of late Summer is due to the wholly sterile fronds that are constantly replacing old or shabby growths. Delicate as even the stoutest Ferns appear to be, they have a wonderful persistency about them. Lovers of shade and moisture, when once well rooted, they will remain in a haunt after the shel- M THE FANTASIES OF FERNS taring trees have been removed so long as their roots can find a drop of moisture. Of course they suffer in quality, the growth is stunted, the fronds are less relaxed and spreading, but beyond Sun- flower Lane, on the edge of the Sea Gardens, there was once a wood where is now a spongy meadow opened to the untempered blaze of the THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 1 95 sun. Out in this open place, adding strange tints to the tawny marsh colors and the whites of An- gelica and Colic Root, are masses of Brakes, Cin- namon, and Royal Ferns, still growing bravely, even though their seared tops are constantly drying away and calling upon the roots for renewal. And these sturdy roots, — can you reach them by any moderate digging ? No ; deeper and deeper they have crept for self -protection, and to supply the juices de- manded of them by their unaccustomed situation. As you leave the larger Ferns by the water and look up the bank from the river to the mountain- side, Ferns, and Ferns only, fill the eye, but of a wholly different character, — not waving and droop- ing in languid succulence, but smaller, more rigid and leathery, of a deeper color, the distinct round fruit -dots following the veins on the leaf -back, — in short, the Common Rock Fern or Polypody, which carpets with cheerful evergreen fronds the rocks that are piled step -like up the slope, tier upon tier, as far as eye can see. The Polypody has slender, creeping roots, that bind the plants to- gether, as they almost hang over the ledges, like mountain climbers held from falling by a retaining rope. They decorate decaying tree trunks, when- ig6 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS ever these interrupt the line of march, and gather about the hollows between the boulders piled by glacial force. Each fox-lair becomes a fairy grotto, and we are no longer in New England woods, but in an enchanted forest of Romance Land. "Where nimble fay and pranksome elf Flash vaguely past at every turn, Or, weird and wee, sits Puck himself With legs akimbo on a Fern !" We certainly owe a debt of love to the half dozen Evergreen Ferns of woods and open. Upon them, in many places where neither Lau- rel nor Hemlocks grow, devolves the wearing of the Magi- cian's green gage above the white -spread lists of Winter, where Frost holds tourney, challeng- ing all to deadly combat, and A few steps more! Stand- BBBjjfl| THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 1 97 ing and turning about slowly in this enchanted place one finds Fern pictures crowding in on every side. At the feet group the dull, dark green, once- divided fronds of the Evergreen Wood Fern, grow- ing from six inches to almost two feet in length. The stems are covered with chaff where they join the root, and the round spore -cases follow the frond edges, on the underside as Fern rule orders. Away toward the left, where the sky-line shows through the trees, a bed of clean -washed Christmas Ferns spreads its enameled, feather -divided leafage about the trunk of a Beech, the sifting light catching and reflecting upon the glossy leaves as on a mirror. Above Tree Bridge the woods have the double quality of being both wet and dry. By this I mean that the soil is never boggy, being made of lightest leaf-mold, and yet the moisture follows the mass of rocks, and rising from the river, is condensed in such abundance that, to the eye at least, nothing ever seems dry. Once above the abrupt, rocky slope, there is a stretch of rolling, high -shaded wood, which rises gradually, to be divided by a lane road that winds through alternate wood and wild meadow in what is called the Den District. ig8 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS These woods are carpeted chiefly by the Lady Fern, the common Fern of thickets and moist tan- gles. It also follows stone walls with its twice - parted feathery fronds, which often rival Silver Spleenwort in height. The Lady Fern is es- sentially graceful and of a lace -like texture, the stems are often somewhat colored, varying from green to yellow, with a pink cast. In late Summer the fronds themselves take brownish and golden tints, which give them added land- scape value. The spore cases are slightly crescent-shaped, and curve outward from the veins that hold THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 1 99 them, oftentimes being so deeply im- pressed as to make an imprint on the upper side of the frond. Mingling with the Lady Fern, toward open edges, and creeping out into the fields by way of damp places, is the Slender Wood, or New York Fern, as Doctor Britton calls it, thus properly giving the translation of its Latin title, Noveboracensis. Though this Fern sometimes grows two feet in length, it is usually much smaller. An unfailing guide to its identity is the way in which the lance-shaped fronds dwindle both ways from the middle, the general tendency of Fern leaves being to slope upward from the base. The leaf itself is once divided, the divisions being deeply toothed, the round, brown -edged fruit -dots following the margins. A casual glance would lead one to say that this same Fern also grows out in the marsh meadows that divide the open woods at intervals ; but though the two often meet, a nearer view shows the meadow lover to be the Marsh Shield Fern, a different species, though a first cousin. Here 200 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS again you may rely upon the leaf shape for iden- tity rather than upon the tufted fruit -dots that edge it. Mounted on a long, bare stem, the frond begins abruptly at its full width, and then slopes gradually to a top less slender than that of the New York Fern. This Marsh Shield Fern is the com- panion of Gentians,1 Ladies' Tresses, and Turtle - head, appearing to walk freely through places wher- ever there is a hint of moisture, standing out boldly on bog tussocks, climbing sturdily down the banks of ditches, and persisting in growing cheerfully until the season of hard frost, no matter how many 1 See page 153. THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 2OI times it has been mown down, or its territory even burned over. Two Ferns of widely different characters are the companions of its moist haunts: the Crested Shield Fern, almost an evergreen, and the Sensitive Fern, which shrivels at the mere suggestion of frost. The Shield Fern is an eccentric in its ways of growth. When seen clustering about a bog tussock the erect fronds are often two feet in height and six inches broad at base. The leaflets being rather triangular, once divided and notched, are somewhat glossy and crisp, and the fruit of the fertile fronds is round and set between the margin and midrib. This, however, is but one of its many types ; I have also found these Ferns growing in the chinks of an old well where, ow- ing apparently to lack of light, the fronds, though a foot and a half in length, were only two inches broad, and drooped with all the limpness of a vine, while between these « two extremes there are many intermediate forms. Locally, the Sensitive 2O2 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS Fern is very common, not only in wet meadows, but along roadsides, or wherever water settles, or a few stones afford a shelter from scythe and plow. The fronds of this Fern have more the appearance of the leaf of a flowering plant than any of its kindred, save perhaps the Walking Fern. They are broadly triangular, deeply cut and toothed, and of a crisp, tender green in which the netted veining is very conspicuous. These leaves, in open places, seldom grow more than a foot or so in length, but in rich bogs the fronds from old strong rootstocks often rival the Osmundas in height if not in grace, for the great basal breadth of the Sensitive Fern gives it strength as massed color, but detracts from the general effect. Like the Cinnamon Osmunda, its fertile fronds are wholly separate, and shaped like a contracted, sterile leaf, upon which green spore globes are set so thickly as to be confluent. After the spores are discharged, these spikes blacken and remain over Winter, often being seen side by side with the fruit of a second year. The Sensitive Fern, as well as the Marsh Shield Fern, adds a great variety to the greens of mead- ows that are cut once or twice a year, for after the Summer mowing the young Ferns spring up, following their creeping rootstocks hither and THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 203 thither, brightening the duller grasses with bands of freshest green. Two other Ferns of swamps and moist grassy woods also carry their globular fruit somewhat after the manner of the Sensitive Fern, and so are asso- ciated with it. These are the Virginia and the Ternate Grape Ferns. The former has a much cut and divided leaf, such as we associate with the Parsleys and other members of the Carrot Family. With the Virginia Fern the fertile, grape -like portion rises from the center of the sterile leaf stem, the plant varying in height from six or eight inches to nearly twenty. This is a Fern of rich woods, while its mate belongs equally to the old turf of pasture -edges and to hillsides. The Ternate Grape Fern is most conspicuous in early Autumn, when its leaf, cut finely and in some phases almost 2O4 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS curling like Parsley, wears a deep bronze hue, which remains constant all Winter. To the novice it does not look like a Fern in any way, for its texture is fleshy like that of so many of the flow- ering plants of Spring. Without the fer- tile stalk, which does not often appear before September, there is little to place it in its tribe. Even when once identi- fied, the leaf presents so many variations in individual plants as to be very puzzling. Now we go through an- other piece of still lighter woods, before coming to the lane bor- der. Here and there are single crowns of the Spinulose Shield Fern, which at first you will take for the Lady Fern; but it has twice -divided fronds, the lower leaflets are unevenly triangular, and the toothing has a thistle -pointed fineness. Once in the lane, poor Flower Hat dropped on the grass in a bewildered fashion, mumbling to herself, and began to stick scraps of Ferns between the leaves of the paper-covered book she carried, writing cabalistic sentences on the margins, and CHRWTMA3 FERNS THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 205 then pinching the corners of the leaves together most recklessly. "No, don't stop me," she exclaimed, as I was going to speak. "I know it is a shabby way to treat a book, but a novel printed from damaged plates and bought in a ten -cent store is n't a book. It's a crime! Besides, I can remember these Ferns better from seeing them where they grow and keeping these bits of leaves, than in putting my eyes out and warping my tongue by working them out prop- erly with a botany. My mind, you ^H see, is of the kindergarten order, that needs nice interesting object les- sons, such as your dear Magician always gives. "Oh, what are those great, silvery -looking Ferns straight in front of me, with the sweeping, slender stems? Silver Spleenwort? What a com- bination for a name! Yes, I see. . The silvery effect in the distance that disappears near to, comes from the whit- ish shade of green and the light leaf lining. Then the leaflets are round-edged instead of being 2O6 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS sharp-toothed, like many others, and the seed cases run out from the middle ridge exactly like feather - stitching. What an exquisite, cool moonlight shade of green they spread under the oaks; but why are they not called Feather - stitched Silver Ferns ? Spleenwort is so suggestive of herb tea and a mussed -up liver!" Quite out in the open, on the very edge of the wheel-tracks, a mass of the triangular leaves of the Broad Beech Ferns, with keeled lower leaflets, were huddled close around a boulder, as if trying to draw from it all possible shade and moisture. But do the best that they could, now that a sheltering tree had been blown over, the sun beat down upon them fiercely and they were much more contracted and crisped than their brothers growing in the shade. However, they will make a good fight, and come up anew year after year, until some near-by saplings grow tall enough to give them shade and perfect shape again. On each side of the lane, where it divides old pastures, waves of delicately cut Ferns followed the old stone walls, and, as it were, broke over them, and then swept toward the wood edge, to be lost in the underbrush. Some of the Ferns were a foot THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 207 high, some two feet or more, while others, though perfect in shape, were small as Polypodies. Some- what narrow at the base, the leaves increased but slightly and dwindled to a graceful point, while the cup-shaped fruit-dots and rounded, saw- toothed edge distinguish it from the Lady Fern, which it much resembles. All these points, together with a certain crisp tex- ture which, when crushed between the fingers or dried, yields a sweet odor, iden- tify it as Dicksonia or the Hay -scented Fern. Really, to use a cant phrase, it is the best all-around Fern we have — beau- tiful in its various haunts on broad, open hillsides and commons as well as in woods, gracious under cultivation, a useful setting for garden flowers when arranged in vase or rose -bowl. Of a light, intense green in Summer, and often renewing its growth, wearing a delicate leaf yellow un- der the bleaching touch of light frost, fragrant even in its decay, bearing a good semblance of life when preserved beyond its season by pressing, — such is the Hay- 2O8 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS scented Fern. And with all its good qualities, not the least is that with us it is one of the most abundant of its race. The shadows were beginning to lengthen when we turned to go down the mountain and retrace our steps across the bridge to where Nell had been left comfortably tethered in one of the sheds belong- ing to the deserted cider-mill. How the landscape on every side, through every vista, was replete with Ferns — Ferns great and small overwhelming every other form of ground growth. On the level hill- top before the rocks slanted too steeply, the spaces between were often filled by beds of Maidenhair. When seen from above, the shining dark stems were quite hidden by the density of the curving forked fronds, that have a circular sweep not un- like the umbrella leaves of the Mandrake or May Apple of Spring. The Maidenhair stem always seems overweighted by the heavy top, which has, to the eye at least, none of the airy qualities of the rarer Ferns, but hangs as if heavy with moisture. Yet, in con- tradiction, when the ground breeze passes, the mass is all a -tremble, like a grove of Aspens. Neither, when looking down upon it, does the THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 2OQ graceful poise of this Fern become evident. It should be viewed from below in order to appreciate the sense of perfect balance and the effect of light and atmosphere. All the summer through I had tried to carry away a picture of it as it lives, but it still evaded my efforts. As we came down the mountain, carefully creeping slowly from rock to rock — for the pit- falls of that delectable place are many, and one foot may be on firm ground, while the other leg suddenly sinks into a hidden hole which swallows it to the knee — my eye rested on a feathery green tuft clinging to the side of a dripping rock, the bunch of leaves protruding through a bit of ragged bark that was in its way. I hastened toward it, slipped and then fairly coasted down the treach- erous Moss to the object in question, to find it a plant of delicate Maidenhair Spleenwort, with shiny, purple-black stems and small, oval, ever- green leaflets — a Fern so exquisite in its fragile grace that it almost seems out of place set amid the rigors of the New England woods. Why had I never discovered it here before? In fact, I had not found it within many miles of Tree -bridge. Simply because the overhanging rock concealed it wholly, and the Mosses gave it color -protection N 210 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS except from the side where, in crawling down the rocks, I had chanced within its range. How to leave it in its haunt and yet take it away in a picture, how to find footing for either camera or self ? After a time, however, both things were accomplished, and I, too, sat down to rest, propped against the same sloping, Fern -cov- ered rock that had couched Flower Hat in the early afternoon. All the while, above and below, the Ferns wove their airy fantasies, and the locusts in the lowland trees never ceased their sharp dron- ing, and would not wholly desist until their tune should be carried into the night in a higher key, and in shriller accents, by the katydids. We drove along the road once more, past wood and forge and mill-pond, — the same homeward bound road of many a day afield. On a narrow stretch below the pond we turned sharply toward the rising bank to make room for an ox -cart that was coming up the hill laden with an aftermath of fragrant Fern hay, the wind bringing news of it even before the eye could distinguish its quality. As it drew nearer, the silver head and long silky beard of Time o' Year appeared atop the load, while a bronzed youth walked beside it, guiding THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 211 the slow oxen with the usual contradictory native jargon. "If 'gee!' means go, and 'haw!' means stop," whispered Flower Hat, "what does 'gee-haw!' sig- nify to the poor oxen ? Possibly to do both at once, which order they obey as best they can by their halting gait." Time o' Year gave us a cheerful greeting, started to speak, hesitated, and while he did so the load passed by and continued its creaking way up hill. The old man had an anxious look upon his 212 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS face, quite different from his usual expression of cheerful serenity. I wondered what it meant. "He has something on his mind that he wants to tell you," said Flower Hat. "I 've seen it in his face ever since that day when we were hunt- ing for the flowers escaped from old gardens. I spoke of it then, you may remember, but you 've never been here alone of late, and I 've surely frightened him off. He never has passed by like that before. See, now, he is looking back." Secretly I resolved to come that way again as soon as possible, without my bright companion, for the old man's sad look went to my heart, and his was a nature that if it told a trouble at all, must do it privily, with the same mystery that he said, " Come and see ! " in leading me to a rare flower. In regaining the road, the chaise wheel caught in a hidden rut dug deep beside the track to carry off the rain water that often gullied the hillside as it tore down. A jerk, and we should have tipped over had not clever Nell stopped short. As it was, we found ourselves laughing and the chaise leaning awkwardly almost against — what ? One of the most beautiful Fern pictures that I had ever seen. The bank here retreated in a sort of bay that was part rock, part loamy leaf -mold. Beech sap- THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 213 lings, Dogwoods and high Oaks shaded it heavily, while among the underbrush dead boughs gro- tesquely decked with lichens had fallen picturesquely here and there. Between and over these hung great fronds of Maidenhair, tier above tier, in suc- culent density. From the road the grouping was quite perfect, the Ferns were fully developed and all in the deep shadow that they love; but with enough refracted light upon the fronds to perfectly reveal their detail. To lead Nell from the ditch and adjust the camera was a moment's work, but how about the wind? It was at that moment whirling stray straws along the road with unpromising vigor. "Is one permitted, by the gracious Upholder - of- Nature -as -it -is, to remove obstacles before a landscape, or perhaps I should call this composi- tion * still life'?" asked Flower Hat laughingly, as she proceeded to pull up some weeds and break off a dead bush that blurred the foreground. "I only wish that it might be still anything for ten seconds, for that is the time I must have to make a clear picture in this shade," I said, look- ing to see from what quarter the wind came. A few moments of holding out a handkerchief settled that the wind blew from the west and came 214 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS down the river valley in intermittent gusts. I watched some tall Grasses that were bunched at the road edge just above the hollow in the bank that held the Ferns. The breeze always struck them a second or so before the Maidenhair began to vibrate. I explained the fact to Flower Hat, and sta- tioned her a few steps back of me as a sentinel, to cry "Now!" when the Grasses signaled the wind's coming. Two plates only remained from the afternoon's photo -sketching, and I jarred the camera through haste in exposing the first. With the last it was now or never! The lens' eye was opened and closed six separate times to avoid gusts, before the measure of time was given. Yet, there is the picture of the Maidenhair poised motionless ! "If you had taken a moment longer, I should have screamed, from the tension of watching the breeze," said Flower Hat. "I wonder what time it is. I forgot my watch to-day and the sun is n't as low as it ought to be, considering how long it is since we had luncheon." I too was watchless, so I suggested that we should ask the time as we passed Aspetuck post- office, but they did n't know: "The clock broke * " THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 215 down last week. But it ain't six yet, because the sawmill whistle ain't blew nor the carrier come with the mail, and he allus jogs along about half- past five," was the answer we received. "Did you ever? And a post-office, too !" ejacu- lated Flower Hat. Presently we asked a man who passed along the road with a load of straw. He squinted at the sun and "calkerlated it was all of four o'clock" ! The next people we met were a couple in an ancient rockaway, the back seat of which over- flowed with sturdy children. They all nodded and grinned, but did not understand our question, evidently being a Hungarian family who had lately come to wrestle with an abandoned Lonetown farm. In desperation we stopped at the second house on the main road after crossing the river, as it looked more neatly kept than any of its neighbors. Flowers blossomed in two straight borders on either side of the walk and a thrifty poultry -house united the barn and cow-shed. "The time, mem?" queried a pleasant -faced woman, curtseying as she opened the door. * 'Alf hafter five hexactly; my good man is a watch- maker 'imself and works over town. Yes, we be strangers in these parts, moved in last boxing day. 216 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 'E works at 'is trade, an' Hi raise heggs. Could n't find the time out nowheres, now could n't 'e, mem? That 's wot Hi calls shameful in a civilized country, — not that hit his that, mum, — and the people, mum, they 're jays, that 's what they his, mum, with no more sense than hidjits ! What do 'e think now, but last May, mum, two chaps come drivin' along collectin' heggs for market, and they pulled up 'ere. * Hi 'm right sorry,' says Hi, -. ••'. THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 217 'Hi 'ave n't heggs to sell the day, but Hi 'ave n't a hegg in the 'ouse.' 'She 'ave n't a hege in the 'ouse,' mocks the man, an' they two chaps drove horf laughin'. Now wot was they laughin' hat, that 's wot Hi 'd like to know? Did n't Hi give 'em a civil answer? Hinglish? Yes, mum, and thank ye kindly, Hi 'm Hinglish — a Devonshire dumplin' too, bless ye! But 'owhever did 'e guess hit, mum?" As we thanked her and walked out of the yard, admiring the woman's honest unconscious- ness, and swallowing our rising mirth lest we too should be ranked as jays, some thick tufts of Ebony Spleenwort, small sword -shaped feather - parted Ferns, caught the eye. They were grow- ing in the dry bank outside the fence, at the roots and in some clefts of a mossed and decaying cedar stump. The once -divided fronds had purplish -black mid- ribs of the same color as the stems of both the true Maidenhair and the slender Maidenhair Spleen - wort, while the seed -cases fairly crowded the back of the fertile fronds which were the longest. Usu- ally seen on dry hillsides or among scrubby grass, often broken and imperfect, we do not realize what a dainty little Fern this Spleenwort is, until 2l8 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS we find tufts of it either amid the soft gray moss of Evergreen woods, or in some such point of vantage as the crumbling old stump. Rarely, as in the Hemlock woods, it grows from the moist clefts of rock ledges, somewhat after the fashion of Maidenhair Spleenwort, and then the fronds are of a more delicate texture and perfect growth. If the flower, with all the subtle expression of form and color, is more beautiful in its haunt, then is the silent Fern doubly so, and it is in their haunts alone, whether of river -bank, wood, moor or hill- side that we may ever seek to interpret the Fern's fantasies. , V* * \ VIII FLOWERS OF THE SUN VERY hue of flower and leaf crosses the open fields at some time of the year, and coming, lingers, never leaving the wild gardens until dis- missed by the leveling touch of frost. It appears as if the Magician had chosen these wide spaces for palettes upon which to broadly mix and blend the pri- mary colors before penciling the more intricate and delicate traceries of wood, waterway and hedgerow. The first green of March, born on the margin of some warm spring, creeps along the field borders and pushes its way outward wherever moisture lures it, until the brown is gradually submerged by the rising tide of verdure. As yet the only matching tint in wood or on the hillside is the somber weathered green of Ground Pine, Wintergreen, Laurel, or Cedar ; and in the swamps, the listening ears of Skunk Cabbages, pointed and satyr-like, 219 220 FLOWERS OF THE SUN seem waiting, alert, for the redwing's reveille, the roll-call of the Marsh Frogs, and the meadow lark's announcement that now, at last, it is "Spring o' the y-e-a-r ! " In the well-groomed farming country the flowers of the sun are routed from the open fields, and forced to take refuge along the fences or on the rocky islands of shallow soil that remain invincible fortresses, unconquered by the plow. But in two places these sun -lovers still run riot, dominating the shiftless attempts at agriculture, both in the aban- doned fields of Lonetown and in the upland moors, between Sunflower Lane and the Sea Gardens, where at most an annual cutting here and there of the coarse grass is the only disturbing ele- ment, great stretches being left wholly untouched, so that the ground is often fairly drenched with color. The flowers of the sun are, superficially speak- ing, of two kinds, simple and composite. Of the simple flowers the Wild Rose, Milkweeds, Convol- vulus, Meadow Lily, and Prickly Pear are types ; while the tufted aggregations of small, tubular blos- soms, the outer row of which may or may not have an extended, raylike petal, giving the flower-head a disk shape, are the composites, of which the com- FLOWERS OF THE SUN 221 mon Ox-eye Daisy, Sunflowers, Goldenrods, Iron- weeds, and Asters are typical. Owing to the strength of cooperation and to vigorous constitutions, the composites are an all- powerful race, and their sway rounds out the year itself, for may not the Dandelion be found in some sheltered, sunny nook from New Year until Christmas ? The composites are almost as much fixtures in the landscape as the trees, so surely can we count on seeing them follow each other in a stolid procession the season through. The very fact of their massiveness leads us to regard them more as pigments, of rich color value in the landscape, than as individual flowers of personal and lovable attributes. But then, it is always thus: massed effort invariably kills individuality. So we must let the composite battalion march by itself, if we wish to be unconfused, and single out and identify the more winning though less numerous flowers of the sun. Nearly all flowers flourish better in the open, or in sheltered rather than in deeply -shaded situa- tions, the few exceptions being leaf-mold plants with rootstocks that creep close to the surface. Almost all of these plants might also live in the open if the supply of moisture was sufficient. By 222 FLOWERS OF THE SUN flowers of the sun, however, I mean only those that we associate with the brilliant light of the summer landscape and its heavy, full-fed greens — flowers that need the direct sun rays to develop the most perfect luxuriance of form and color. Some we also find in early autumn, before any thought of decay dims the plant horizon and while the few prematurely red leaves that decorate Maple and Sumac do not suggest hectic color, but serve merely to heighten the opulence of maturity. In the fields we do not look for the delicate half-tones and stipplings such as we find in woods and along the waterways — though, to be sure, the Water Lilies are all sun -lovers — but for strong primary colors; so we are constantly meeting with surprises. Of the three primaries, red, blue and yellow, the last is the only color found in its purity in large quantities, red ranking next, and blue, with flowers, as with the plumage of birds, being the rarest pigment of all. There is another curious fact about the distri- bution of these primary colors in the plant world. When left to natural selection the three are not often found in the same genus, if at all. Thus we have a red and a blue Lobelia, but no yellow; a red and a yellow Field Lily, but no blue; a blue FLOWERS OF THE SUN 223 and yellow wild Aster, but no red; and so on in- definitely. Even with the garden flora the same fact obtains. The blue Rose is missing, also a clear red Pansy. Verbenas, Sweet Peas, and Salvia skip a true yellow, and Dahlias and Hollyhocks are never blue. Hybridization may introduce a tint approaching the lacking color nearly enough for commercial nomenclature, but not the distinct pri- mary itself. Why this is so remains a problem for science, but the answer will undoubtedly be found meshed in the mazes of plant fertilization by insects. For three months these flowers of the sun reign in the meadows, from the May Buttercups until middle August, when the vigor of the composites largely overwhelms the frailer plants. The delight of finding the flowers in their haunts never palls; it is renewed like the seasons. But if you wish to make the pleasure keener, it is only necessary to guide to them one who is both enthusiast and novice. Such a one was Flower Hat, of keen ear and color-gauging eye, when I first took her to my beloved sunlit meadows with a June landscape for initiation. Summer, coming in with a swirl, had swept away the Painted Cup, Wild Geranium, Celandine, and Iris or Great Blue 224 FLOWERS OF THE SUN Flag, before our pathways, which had touched and crossed in other years, met again, to run as nearly parallel as those of unsheeplike people may. One day, between early and middle June, we sauntered, — Nell's usual gait, born of experience when off the highroad, — along Sunflower Lane, pausing often to look through gaps in the hedging bushes across hayfields where stiff Timothy already rustled crisp as Rye. On the left a few well-kept upland meadows, rosy with lush Clover, made vistas between narrow strips of woods, and beyond these the marsh meadows and the Sea Gardens glistened with brilliant samphire green. The brushed and wooded places were overflow- ing with bird melody, and the hungry twittering of fledglings, answered by the warning call -notes of anxious parents, came from every side. Bobolinks swayed and sang in tree -tops, and, clinging to arch- ing Blackberry canes snowy with blossoms, launched themselves into the meadows, where they suddenly disappeared with the impetuous dash of a diver cleaving the waves, leaving behind, not a wake of spray, but a veil of music, to cover their retreat. Above the tall Black Alders in the moist ditch beside the lane, redwings were fluttering and call- ing wildly as of old, showing that at least one way- FLOWERS OF THE SUN 225 side colony had held its own, through the perilous dark ages of thoughtlessness, until the awakening of intelligence in the cause of bird protection. An osprey sailed majestically across to his fishing -grounds beyond the beach, and a myriad of tiny warblers flitted on before us, darting in and out of the blossoming Grape-vines, whose fragrance wafted from overhanging trees and followed us from leafy trails along the fence -rails. Beside the runnel, that was outlined by Ferns and the unopened flowers of Water Hemlock, great masses of the stalwart Cow Parsnip held its broad white -flowered umbels on six-foot stems. Once a quail mounted an old fence post and called "Bob White!" hurriedly, three or four times, disappearing in the brush without wait- ing for a reply. We did not speak, Flower Hat and I, but continued to where the lane ended in the open fields. There, before we had quite left the shelter of the last tree, Nell instinctively stopped, while Flower Hat drew in her breath and released it slowly in a sigh of pleasure. To define the differ- ent tints of green alone, that were blended by the sun and an almost imperceptible sea -mist, would require an artist, both in temperament and words; yet these greens were but as the settings to the 226 FLOWERS OF THE SUN sapphire, amethyst, ruby and gold that jeweled the open stretch, where, for a mile, the eye roamed uninterrupted over dry, moist or brackish meadows, unbounded save by an occasional stone or stake bearing some cabalistic sign, the dubious landmarks of many claimants. The gems of gold were the countless clusters of Sundrops, the daytime brother of the paler Evening Primrose, lowly tufts of Star Grass and sturdy Yellow Thistles; the sap- phires, the lily -shaped flowers of the stout Blue -Eyed Grass; and the sparkling amethyst, its taller cousin, the slender Iris or Blue Flag, which blends, in the exquisitely penciled flower, the gold and blue of its field mates with a purple tint of its own, while the freshly opened heads of escaped Clover and the native Milkwort car- ried the ruby tint right into the shining emerald sedge. "Oh, for a musician to write a sunlight sonata!" murmured Flower Hat, half to herself. " Some one gay and bubbling, like Papa Haydn, but who would leave out the piping of shepherds and give instead the vital breath of the earth — a tone poet both serious and emo- FLOWERS OF THE SUN 227 tional. See — listen! there is the Allegro motif, the bobolinks and twittering swallows carrying the theme, while the very grass marks the rhythm as it blows to and fro. One must be deaf and blind not to hear and al- most see the music that expresses it all." "Yes," I said, "it is music and paint- ing as well, a perfect land- scape, its horizon hidden in sea-mist, inland boundaries of Oak woods for contrast, and every flower and leaf in it as much a part of the whole, and as dependent for full meaning upon the com- plement of surroundings, as are the separate notes of a glorious chord." In middle July we were again in the back country, and resting from the noon heat under some great Sugar Maples which, as they so often do, topped a road-bank, standing like a stately grenadier guard, exactly so many paces apart, in regions where there 228 FLOWERS OF THE SUN are no present signs of habitations to account for their planting. Inside the fence was a rocky waste, then rolling and rather barren hills, but across the road were fields, dry at the edge and hedged with vigorous Wild Rose Bushes, but soon dropping to less barren if not absolutely moist soil, and a bit of low pasture. There was no breeze; waves of heat quivered above the sandy road; the leaves hung heavy, as did the languid air, which seemed to make respira- tion slow. Some cattle, grouped under a single Chestnut in the middle of the pasture, chewed their cuds slowly, while a red -eyed vireo in the Maples repeated his monotonous song over and over. Even the flower colors, though bright, seemed less emotional than those of the June fields, per- haps because the sun's fierce rays somewhat ab- sorbed and neutralized the reds and yellows. The great patches of Prickly Pear or Indian Fig, with its thick leaves set with tufts of spines, had managed to find lodging in the earth, which in spots failed to conceal the rock ledge in the near-by field, red with Sheep Sorrel, bringing a picture of the arid plains to the hillside. The showy blossoms, flow- ers of a day, three inches across and set singly on the leaf edges, are of a clear yellow, the petals FLOWERS OF THE SUN 229 having that peculiar quality which we see in the Night -blooming Cactus, while the stamens form a thick ornamental tassel. Although the plants were still in full bloom, there were many withered flowers and also some of the prickly pear-shaped fruits, which in time become a dull red, and are edible for those liking their flat, sickly- sweet flavor. Across the road the Wild Roses varied from pale pink to deep car- mine, according to the fulness or the newness of their bloom, and in dry places thorny wands of Sweet-briar, studded with its flesh -white flowers, made grace- ful arches. Farther afield, where the remains of a stone fence, long since tumbled down, gave protection and drew moisture, was a long line of white foam, the flowers of Meadow Sweet Spirea. This white line, as it broke abruptly 230 FLOWERS OF THE SUN away from the fence and invaded the richer meadow, rose higher in spray and here proved itself to be the tall, feathery Meadow Rue, with much -com- pounded leaves. With the Rue a stately plant appeared. The straight stalk, five feet in height, was capped by a pyramid of nodding flowers and buds, fifteen in all. The open flowers, with recurved petals of deep yellow, and tiger -spotted, tawny -capped stamens, vibrated at a touch, until it seemed as if they would tinkle forth music as sultry as the day itself. A giant Meadow Lily this, grown doubt- less from a veteran bulb, for the others that nod- ded drowsily over the field grasses grew in twos and threes on stalks at most a foot or two in height and varied in color from yellow through tawny to Indian red. A springy spot was marked by the faded pink spikes of Steeple Bush, a cousin of Meadow Sweet, and another species that promises so much and yields so little. Glints of red among the meadow grass gathered in an erratic trail toward the shade at the farther edge. Another Lily, but this time the purple -spotted flower is held erect, chalice-like, and when two or three branch from the straight stalk, circled at intervals by its wheeled leaves, the FLOWERS OF THE SUN 231 I stopped with effect is of an exquisitely wrought and enameled candelabrum. This is the Red Wood Lily, so called because it is said to grow in shade; but I have always found it, as now, shedding its light over the open fields, though, of course, it may be a case of the flower having survived the sheltering trees of its real haunt. Hereabout, at least, it is a true flower of the sun. Flower Hat followed lazily, comparing the Lilies that she held in each hand with those in the grass, moving them to and fro to change the effect of light, suddenly, shading my eyes hand, and she, unheeding, almost fell over me, crying: "What is it, a big black snake at last? No? We shall have to meet one some day, and I am not sure but what, like the woman who looks under the bed for burglars, I 'm half disappointed that we have not met even a little one as yet. It deprives bog -trotting of half the adventure that I had 232 FLOWERS OF THE SUN thought a part of it. Considering the places, too, that you have rashly dragged me through the past month, I 'm beginning to think that this part of New England was really discovered by St. Patrick in an unrecorded voyage, but rinding the territory rather large to cover with spells, and opportunities of escape great, he retired to practice snake -charming in a spot where he could drive his victims into the ocean after the dramatic, orthodox, and rapid fashion of the devil - possessed swine." "Superbum, Turk's Cap Lilies, you say — where?" she continued, hardly waiting for my explanation. "Oh! in- deed they are superb. Truly, I don't wonder that you stopped short and could n't believe your eyes; surely to-day we are allowed to see the Lilies of the field in all their fine raiment. What reds and yellows! See that patch of orange yonder where the land begins to roll: what is it?" FLOWERS OF THE SUN 233 A field sparrow perched upon a stalk of Mul- lein gave his little song in a slow and listless man- ner that lacked the precision of a month ago. A chippy hidden in the grass followed with his insect - like trill that belongs to Spring dawns, and, heard at noon in July, seems doubly unbirdlike. We both paused a moment as we climbed over the old, tum- bled down, vine -covered wall that was little more than a zigzag stone heap, and looked back at the Lily field. Not a breath of air troubled the grass through which the sweep of the land seemed to move in a legato measure "This is the second movement of your Sunlight Sonato, Adagio," I said, when we had reached the orange blaze on the hillside, which proved to be a glo- rious mass of But- 234 FLOWERS OF THE SUN terfly Weed, the queen of Milkweeds, in perfect bloom, — an oasis in a desert of wiry grasses and Mulleins. Close to the Milkweed was a bed of Toad Flax, or Butter-and-Eggs, as we call it locally, the jolly yellow - spurred flowers with orange lips seeming to crowd and jostle one another on the spike. No one would have thought of grouping these two flowers together, but the Magician sanctioned it, and the result was a barbaric color effect, with the bluish gray heat haze for a background. "Let us get back into the shade and rest," said Flower Hat, covering her eyes. "I 'm fairly ex- hausted with color." So we found our way to a partly shaded cart- track, that crossed the fields and led toward the road where Nell waited under the Maples. Milk- weeds of various kinds were scattered along the open side of the track, and swarms of brick -red butterflies, called Milkweed Monarchs, hovered over them, while the color scheme was still further carried out in tint and form by the star -shaped flowers of common St. John's-wort, of fragrant foliage, — being the Herb John of old gardens, — the golden Partridge Pea with sensitive leaves, and by the paler -hued Yellow Loosestrife. FLOWERS OF THE SUN 235 With the exception of the orange Butterfly Weed, the Milkweed family use a different color scheme, varying from the white of the Wood Milk- weed through pink to dull purple. Here by the cart-track the most conspicuous was the Common Milkweed, of the silk -filled pod, robust habit, and great, almost globe-shaped clusters of flowers of a color difficult to describe, so strangely does pink blend with a dull gray tint. In early morning or toward night this flower exhales a penetrating fragrance, so that in passing along a roadway edged by swamps I have been deceived by it into looking for the Clammy White Azalea. Next in color comes the Swamp Milkweed of low grounds and waterways, which is a decided pink; and deeper yet are the less luxuriant blossoms of the Purple Milkweed, with deep pink flowers dull- ing to carmine -purple, and leaves more sharply pointed than the Silkweed near which it grew along the cart-track and climbed the hillside. "Shade, rest, and — luncheon! This is indeed Adagio for mind and body," murmured Flower Hat drowsily over a closed book an hour later. Her enjoyment of outdoors was as yet more physical than mental. She was soothed rather than stimu- 236 FLOWERS OF THE SUN lated. Later on the balance would be more equal, and though she might rest balmily in the open, it would not be with closed eyes, and she would aban- don the formality of holding a book in her lap when the Magician spreads his open pages before her, turning them to suit every mood, with fingers none the less real because invisible. We had been sitting with our backs toward the west. Suddenly the sun -rays that flooded the road were withdrawn, and we turned together to see the thunder -heads racing up the sky toward their favorite point, from which, however, they have often veered. But this day determination was written on each puffy ridge, and emphasized by a smoky yellow underscud that made me immediately wish for the sight of a farmhouse, ever so small. "Did I say Adagio a moment ago?" cried Flower Hat, on her feet in an instant, and jamming the things into the chaise. "That is over, and in a moment the Rondo will be jangling over us. Really, though this movement is out of its authorized place, the Sonata is progressing finely. If we only had the musical impressionist to transfer it from the air to paper! Did you see that flash? Don't put the drinking-cup on top of the plate - holders ? — I didn't mean to ; but please do hurry with that camera, and FLOWERS OF THE SUN 237 let us get away from these trees. Trees are very bad things to be under. Go over in that old shed yonder? Never! you know that hay attracts light- ning, and I see wisps sticking through the cracks." "Then," said I, "there is nothing to be done but to pull up the chaise top and boot and follow the road until we come to the first house, which is all of a mile away, I 'm sure. Oh ! there are the first notes of your Rondo, and, of course, as a mu- sician, you must expect many repetitions of them," I continued, teasingly, as a heavy peal of thunder started a downpour of staccato rain. "Do keep in the middle of the road," begged Flower Hat, as branches brushed the chaise top. "Doan* you look to de lef, doan' you look to de right, Keep in de middle ob de road!" I hummed, assuming a gayety which I did not feel. Poor Flower Hat, however, was not looking at anything except the trembling sleeve in which her face was hidden. So I whipped up Nell, much to her indignation, which, however, showed itself effec- tively in a snort, curvet, and spurt of speed — it was a down-grade, to be sure — which soon brought us to the farmhouse. I also confess that I do not like thunder-storms, and prefer, when caught out 238 FLOWERS OF THE SUN in one, to have a masculine companion. Why? For purely logical reasons. If there is any trem- bling to be done, I want to do it myself. And I like the manly reassurance, " There is nothing to be afraid of," whether I believe it or not. Flower Hat went to the mountains in August soon after our last day at Tree -bridge, and so missed the great flower show of the composites. But she reappeared one perfect middle September day, and begged for another trip to complete the Sunlight Sonata, if it were not too late. "Too late?" I said hesitatingly. "Not for com- posites, but rather late for the simple singing flowers. However, we will try, though it will not be to find orange and yellows, but rather more fragile and uniquely clad blossoms." "Better yet!" she cried. "They '11 be the theme for the Scherzo or slender light -stepping Minuetto." Then we departed from our usual haunts in the Sea Gardens and Time o' Year's woods, and turned Nell in a northeasterly direction, to where low meadows basking in sunlight borrowed moisture from adjoining springy woods, where in time it collected in pools, that gained motion and mean- dered off as little streams to find the Housatonic. FLOWERS OF THE SUN 239 It was a sparkling day. A keen breeze out of a cloudless sky kept everything a -titter. The grass greens were still of Summer freshness, but here and there a Pepperidge, Scarlet Oak, or Sumac thicket, a Maple or a Trailing Creeper, showed the Autumn coat of many colors which soon would wrap the countryside. The perfumes of the way were not born of Elderflowers, Clethra, or Milkweed balls, but of the spice of ripened grapes heated through by the sun's ardor. In wooded lanes the leaves shook with the pattering sound of rain as in the Springtime. Out in the open the long grasses swished forwards and backwards with the crisp, sweeping sound that fol- lows the scythe. Quail coveys, protected by the close season, often ran fearlessly along the roadside, then rising in unison, with a whirr as of one pair of wings, dropped, and disappeared in the fields, where the corn was already cut and stacked. Flocks of mixed warblers that were feeding and waiting for night to continue their migration, fid- geted about restlessly, and high in the clear sky a company of broad -tailed hawks were soaring in wondrous circles, after their Autumn and Winter fashion, as if for pure pleasure. "There is a new color," said Flower Hat, laying 24O FLOWERS OF THE SUN her hand on the reins and pointing to a low meadow. "It is too deep a rose for Clover. What a wonder- ful mass of bloom!" "A new color and two shades of it to boot, — two flowers, I think," I said, looking carefully, "and the field is evenly divided between them. The lower half is one sheet of the magenta, cross -shaped flowers of Meadow Beauty; and in the drier upper half the large Purple Gerardia, which is really a crimson -pink, is growing as thick as Clover in June. Surely the Magician has led us to-day, for I have never before seen either flower in such splendor." A few miles farther on, and the rolling ground showed patches of tall Blue Lobelia of a more brilliant hue than the Bugloss or Blue Weed that we had found as a garden escape. "What a perfect blue!" cried Flower Hat. "Wait a mile or two more before you say perfect blue," I answered, and then thought, What if it is not there this season? But it was! Between two lightly wooded hills ran a green river of marsh weeds, moss and tussock grass, the whole thickly set with flowers of two colors, — deep sapphire and white. At a distance the detail of the flowers was not FLOWERS OF THE SUN 24! discoverable, merely the color ; but as we threaded our way in from the edge, the blue brightened and became Fringed Gentian, and the white, glistening like pearls, divided itself into countless spikes of the crystal Ladies' Tresses and the single, five-petaled blossoms of . the Grass of Parnassus, a heavily veined flower, held upon a long stem above the tufted, plantain -like leaves. The fringed petals of the wide-open Gentian, caught and twirled by the wind that blew through the gap, drank in the full sun- light and wore the azure, the hue of heaven, with which Bryant paints the flower that, unless seen blooming in the open, belies its famed charm as well as color, for the half -opened blossoms of the shade are purplish, contracted, and more interesting botanically than as flowers of the landscape. Flower Hat stood in silence, looking first at the sky, across which thin, feathery clouds now sailed, then at its reflection in the flowery maze before P 242 FLOWERS OF THE SUN her, where Gentians, Marsh Ferns, and Ladies' Tresses were blended and swayed with the breeze that also brought zither music from the slender Birches, while the ripe grape odor and the rustling reeds on the marsh edge suggested the rhythmic treading of the wine press of pastoral days. "This is the finale," she cried. "Minuet or Scherzo, as you will. We have seen, we have breathed, we have heard! Yet, alas! who will imprison our Sunlight Sonata for us, that others may believe ? " IX A COMPOSITE FAMILY UGUST ushers in the reign of the Composites, whose realm, wide as the land, is ,entered by many ways. Every road that escapes the annual "turnpiking" and fence -clearing, so dear to the heart of s'lectmen, becomes a highway through it, while Sun- flower Lane is the direct passage to the Palace of the golden -crowned mon- archs, where, even before July has left, Joe Pye, of robust stature, takes his place as chamber- lain, with Boneset for court physician, Black -eyed Susan, jolly though not in her first youth, for lady-in-waiting, Dent-de-lion, scattering gold coins upon the grass, as chief almoner, Ironweed for armorer, and Fragrant Everlasting as perfumer; for the Composite Tribe, it will be noticed, are very old-fashioned and conservative in the matter of perfumes, seldom venturing beyond the herby odors. 244 A COMPOSITE FAMILY A little space before the lane merges in open fields is the Throne Room itself, where, until frost snuffs the lights and locks the door, Giant Wild Sunflower is king, and reigns majestically, holding his head high above his tallest subject as he watches his progeny crowding every bit of hospitable ground far and wide throughout the meadows, even ven- turing to tiptoe into the brackish overflow that quickens the Sea Gardens. For some strange, but doubtless scientific reason, of recent date, the tribe of the Composite, in being given an English name, is by Britton and Brown called the Thistle Family. Why Thistle, instead of Aster, Goldenrod — the most widely distributed of the tribe — or, better yet, Sunflower, the tallest and most conspicuous of the group, I cannot fathom. In England the race is called the Asterworts; yet, after all, the direct translation, Composites, under which it figured in Gray's familiar botany, is the best, favoring, as it does, no one household, and aptly describing this class of plants where numerous in- dividual blossoms are colonized and gathered into a head, making what, to the casual observer, appears to be one single flower. Strong with the power of cooperation, the Composites have a perpetual representation at the A COMPOSITE FAMILY 245 Sun's council fire, about which the twelve months sit awaiting in turn for the season to give their varied offerings. From November until early April the Dandelion, opening bravely in thawed places and warm corners, is the only resident member. In late April the woolly leaves and light pur- ple wheels of Robin's Plantain may be seen carrying the hue of the paler Violets into dry ground and well up hillsides where the aster- like flowers keep com- pany with the white fluff of the early Everlasting, that quite suggests its local name of Pussy -toes. In May, Chamo- mile takes the field, with its fine -cut leaves, a fore- runner in shape, though not in size, of its cousin, the Ox - eye Daisy ; and before June has fairly arranged her exquisitely brocaded draperies, this same Daisy is seizing upon waste fields and road 246 A COMPOSITE FAMILY edges, cutting "across lots" through the most care- fully tended of hay fields, living as a squatter im- possible to uproot around the edges of pastures, and impertinently lounging along the grass borders of the garden, even after being violently turned away many times from the flower-beds where it sought shelter behind the large branches of her- baceous perennials. Of itself clear-cut and hand- some, the flower that children love and may gather by the bushel unchidden ; of wonderful landscape value when massed; — this poor Ox-eye Daisy has gained ill repute from an inherent tact- lessness, for which it is no more responsible than is the English sparrow for his inordinate appetite, fertility, and manners unbecoming a gentlemanly bird. Both flower and bird usurp the places of their betters with a familiarity of demeanor which has bred in us an aggressive contempt. "Both had ought to be drove out!" ejaculated Time o' Year one day as, looking across his best hay meadow, resown only two years before, he realized that it was more white than green, while, at the same time, a partly disabled bluebird tumbled to the fence in front of him, having been worsted by a sparrow as he defended his home in a hollow apple branch. A COMPOSITE FAMILY 247 "The mischief of it is," he continued, ruefully, picking up the bluebird, smoothing its feathers, and setting it upon a shaded branch, while he shied a stick at the invading sparrow, "both on 'm works more hours a day than we do, and has more time ter give ter holdin' on than we to rootin' and drivin' 'em out. So naturally we can split our throats a-provin' that they 'd orter go, but they don't, all the same!" In late May and early June the fragrant Yellow Thistles show their bristling leaves, which give a hornet's sting to those that touch them, along the edges of brackish marsh meadows. This Thistle is an unpickable flower, but one that adds great charm to the foreground of the meadow land- scape, otherwise somewhat monotonous with its straight -growing grasses, by weaving through it a unique brocaded pattern of leaf and flower, that is of infinite relief to the eye seeking in vain for focus amid the blending colors of the unfenced expanse. Next to the Dandelion and Ox-eye, the Thistles are the Composites most constantly with us, for their picturesque if mischievous flowers, represented by the Field, Pasture, Swamp, Creeping, and Scotch 248 A COMPOSITE FAMILY varieties, nlay be seen from May until November, and the rugged Bur Thistle, like the veritable tramp that it is, only disappears when literally snowed under. June also brings the white bunches of Yarrow with the pungent herbage, while as the month passes the white of the Ox-eye Daisy grows dingy, and Black -eyed Susan, vigorous and bus- tling in a blaze of Indian yellow, takes its place, giving the keynote of the color scheme that will gradually dominate, until, in many places, the field flag of August and September is a tricolor of gold -green -purple. In July the golden buttons and vigorous fern- cut leaves of Tansy draw attention to the roadsides and waste corners that it brightens, at the same time giving a wholesome, herby odor, telling of its medicinal qualities, which have, in fact, gained for the flowers the somewhat dubious name of Bitter Buttons. During this month, also, the various Coneflowers, Black-eyed Susan's taller kinsmen, draw the eye from the open fields to the low river borders, where the notched yellow rays of the green -headed Coneflower, held well above the deeply-cut leaves, rival the Giant Sunflower in height, bending above the intervening barriers of A COMPOSITE FAMILY 249 Joe Pye, Ironweeds, and rank -grown river tangle, to be clearly mirrored in the water. One glowing August morning, when a fresh easterly wind, having dispersed the heat haze, brought an invigorating hint of September, Nell and I started out to look for Time o' Year. It was the first day that I had ever deliberately tried to find him. I had oftentimes wondered as to his whereabouts, or ex- pected to see him in some ac- customed field, or following the river path, but usually I had come upon him unexpectedly, or he had overtaken me in a mys- terious manner, as if in answer to a telepathic impression, at the very moment when he was most needed as a guide or counselor. Where to locate him this day was indeed a question. His range was wide, and his little cabin the most unlikely place to find him between sunrise and sunset. So, 25O A COMPOSITE FAMILY after crossing the hills and leaving the more fre- quented roads behind, I let the reins hang loose, so that Nell might choose the path herself, as any one of the three roads that diverged from the hill below the Lilac House led to an equally uncertain hunting ground. Already the Goldenrods were bright in field and swamp, crowding close to the wheel - tracks and climbing to the tops of gravel banks where little else could find footing. The landscape from middle August to middle September is so identical as to make one wish that the conventional division of the seasons followed the natural law, and that Sum- mer might have all the golden days that really be- long to her until the autumnal equinox is reached, September twenty-first. Almost all the common Goldenrods were repre- sented, either in the wayside crowd or in the more exclusive groups that peeped out from the woods, or carried gleams of sunlight along the swamp edges to cheer the stately somberness of Cat -tail Flags. The Silver Rod, with its leafy wand of whitish blossoms, mingled with the Blue -stemmed Golden - rod, which bears its flowers in little bunches in the leaf axils, on the partly-shaded banks of the upper , • A COMPOSITE FAMILY 251 Hemlock road, while the two Bush Goldenrods, the Robust and the Slender -fragrant, with flat -topped flower -clusters held well above leaves of two de- grees of narrowness, continued the yellow through arid open places until, at the top of the next hill, these also merged in a confusing throng composed of the Elm- leaved, Showy, Anise -scented and Cut -leaved species. Goldenrod, collectively, is a delight to the eye from its color and an indispensable factor in the landscape. For decorative pur- poses it is eminently satisfactory, sought out and beloved by all men, as is amply proved by "Gol- denrod weddings," and by the nu- merous jars, pitchers, water cans, and bean -pots filled with it that decorate suburban stoops, shield- ing the feet of the sex whose idea of rural pleasure is to sit exercising the patient piazza rocking chairs. The Composites, as a whole, are first and last flow- 252 A COMPOSITE FAMILY ers of the people, flowers that may be gathered freely, that are undiscouraged by much handling, reviving cheerfully and living for weeks after a protracted journey under the seat of a picnic wagon, and dangerously easy to transplant, — in short, to be considered and used decoratively more as we regard textile fabrics than as flowers. Taken individually, however, and from the standpoint of calling each member of this Com- posite household by name, the Goldenrods, outside of half a dozen well-marked species, offer the Chi- nese puzzle of the floral world. In fact, they are a byword among plant students, who say that if a botanist is ever condemned to the severest punish- ment that the underworld can mete, the penalty will be to write a monograph, accurately describing and identifying all the known Goldenrods. As I have often found, in connection with tramps afield, when I least expect the unexpected, it happens. Nell lifted the Goldenrod haze that had made me oblivious as to exactly which of the wood roads we were following, by stopping suddenly and giving a sort of interrogative whinny, as much as to ask, "Do we tie here?" To my surprise I found that we were abreast of an old shed, under which she had often spent the middle A COMPOSITE FAMILY 253 of warm days while Flower Hat and I roamed about the Tree -bridge region. The shed was one of Time o' Year's scattered bits of property and only separated by a tangled strip of garden flowers from his cabin, behind which he was now sitting on an Elm stump used for a chopping-block, his fine head held between his hands, his deep eyes open, and gazing straight before him at nothing, unless it was the yellow ribbon of dwarf Brook Sunflowers that started from below the overflow tub by his well, and looped and twisted to join a broader band that outlined a meadow pool. Nell had already turned into her familiar quar- ters under the shed, and I hastened across the lot below to come within distant range of the old man without surprising him into betraying any trouble that he might not wish to reveal. I paused a mo- ment to look up at a gigantic stalk of Canada Goldenrod that held its plumes high above my head, and at once became conscious that he was coming toward me, his wide straw hat pulled well over his eyes, one hand twisting nervously in his wonderful beard that glistened like spun silver or the newly released silk of Milkweeds. "There wa'n't no other way out of it. I allowed when the breeze came up long about sun- 254 A COMPOSITE FAMILY rise that you 'd jest have ter come to -day," he said, by way of greeting, speaking more rapidly than I had ever heard him. "Is that quick -movin', fidgety young lady along that always shifts about and grabs posies up first and is drefful sorry a'ter- wards?" he added anxiously. "No, I ain't sick. Do I look worriet ? Well, I be, and if you can spare time to set down in the shade a bit in patience, I '11 unfold it ter you. It 's more 'n thirty years ago since I took counsel o' any one, an' then it was of a woman, an' so long as I had her light to go by, things never went altogether wrong; but when she left me I groped along the best I could, and by keepin' her lights in sight and stayin' alone or mostly in the wood path, I allowed I could n't get far astray, and I was happy — though sometimes I e'ena'most followed Job's do- ings in the Scripters. But late days som'at 's come that 's upset everythin', and the lights has bobbed about uncertain as the Jack o' Lanterns over the swamp yonder. So I thought, seeing as you read birds' feelin's and the natur' of posies, and talk to yer mare like a sister, maybe you might understand me, for I 'm only a bit of a weed agoin' to seed by the wayside." As Time o' Year said "when she left me," he A COMPOSITE FAMILY 255 made a backward gesture toward the hillside bury- ing-place a quarter of a mile beyond, with its uneven slate slabs, which I had never before noticed was plainly visible from his home. We had gravitated toward the shade behind the cabin where he had been sitting. He disappeared for a moment and brought out a low, straight - backed chair — a woman's sewing chair, I surmised — which he placed facing the river, and again seated himself on the chopping-block. Two or three minutes passed, which seemed like half an hour. A kingfisher flew over, some jays argued noisily below in the dense arbor of river grapes, and the distant commotion among a flock of crows that made their roost from late Summer onward in the Cedar woods, suggested that an owl had impolitely invaded their territory and was provoking discord. Still Time o' Year sat silent. For occupation I counted the various Asters that made a fringe along the uneven garden fence. There were five kinds, but growing in such luxuriance as to ap- pear forty. The tallest of the plants, a sturdy bush, in fact, was the common Blue Wood Aster, with large, heart-shaped leaves and violet-blue flowers; with it mingled the Early Purple, Violet 256 A COMPOSITE FAMILY Wood and smaller bushes of White Heath Aster, the familiar Michaelmas Daisy of roadsides, while groups of patens, the Late Purple Aster, so called because of its long blooming season, with ovate clasping leaves and deep violet, daisy -like rayed flowers, made broad splashes of rich color within the garden itself. "Ephraim is dead," said Time o' Year, suddenly, and then paused, as if announcing the end of some one so well known as to be a part of history. I searched my brain for an interpretation, and at the mo- ment when I remembered that it was his own baptismal name and therefore probably that of his son who had dis- appeared so long ago, he took up the thread again. "He was my boy. You prob- ably never heard o' him, being young if even born when it hap- pened, and anyway, only acquainted with posies hereabout, not folks. "He seemed a terrible likely child, C^T^ TAI4.4 Af4D J#*-W# GDl^EH*00 A COMPOSITE FAMILY 257 our only one, and bright -minded, quick at his book-tasks, in which his mother" (how gently the word was uttered), "havin' been a school- ma'am herself, took pride. His fault was allus seeing things better than they be, or makin' 'em out so, any chance. "A good way o' lookin' at things? No, I don't mean bein' jest sort o' cheerful about bothers. That way 's upliftin'. His mother, she was like that. But I mean the stretchin' o' facts till they get so out er shape, no one would know 'em. If he caught a pick'rel, it was allus six when the news got out. Not that thet black- , ,. , . WHITE HEAJH ened him, cause an increase often happens ter fish when out er water. But he 'd tell things that had no backin' and put folks ter inconvenience. 'Long about the winter when he was sixteen, eggs was terrible skeerce, — hadn't had fresh ones at the store in two weeks, and the meat peddler 258 A COMPOSITE FAMILY that usu'lly picked 'em up over twenty miles o' country even got out o' limed ones. "Come about Christmas time folks got nervous, expectin' company and no eggs for makin' cakes and squash pies. Eph, he was down to the store for oil and heard the talk. 'Pshaw !' said he, an' the minister stood right by him when he said it, 'We folks has got plenty o' eggs, and ma 's a-limin' of 'em down. She 's got a trick o' mixin' sassage meat into their meal ter make 'em lay, and keepin' their nesthouse hot with the old wood stove.' "Of course this sounded likely enough to shet off any suspicions. That night it snowed heavy, and next morning we saw two sleighs with a plow in front breakin' the way up hill. 'What's mis- chanced?' quoth she; 'there 's the doctor's cutter, and the Jedge and the minister a-ridin' together behind it.' "'I dunno,' I allowed, bein' more startled than I showed, mistrustin' somethin' inwardly. 'Jedging from those that 's comin' it might be for a weddin', a bornin', or a bury in', only there 's no folks ripe for either up this cross road.' "Eph came out from behind the stove where he was readin' a tale of Injins that they give away that fall with cans o' gunpowder down ter the A COMPOSITE FAMILY 259 Center. He took a scared look out o' the win- der, and slipped over toward the barn, jest as the folks halted and began to get out baskets. 'We 've come fer eggs!' shouted the doctor, hurryin' so 's to be first. ' Name yer own price in cash ! * "This tells you how eggs was prized then, for in those times things was mostly traded, and I re- member one year the only cash went through my hands was a three -cent bit and two paper quarters. "Naturally it all come out that Eph 'd said we had eggs, and they was terrible put about, breakin' three miles o' road for nothin'. The minister, he preached on lyin' the next Sunday, and called for the prayers o' the congregation for Ephraim, in which the doctor, bein' a deacon, led, and left nothin' unsaid. The result was such hectorin' all round that in the spring, as soon as the roads was good, the boy ran off with a feller that travelled around sellin' maps and sech, who had been hang- in' about the Center interviewin' the school com- mittee. "Practical joke? Folks didn't understand him? Had too much 'magination? Ye 're kindly disposed, I see, just like his mother was. She allers allowed his meanin's was misread. Maybe in a big town it 26O A COMPOSITE FAMILY would 'a' been overlooked and he been guided into a story -writer, as yer say, but here around Lone- town he was just plain liar. The minister had proved it by Scripter, and that ended it, and folks was shet of Eph, for ministers was dreadful unre- lentin' those times, and felt it their duty to keep God stirred to wrath constant. This minister in particular was one o' them that did n't even approve o' parts o' the New Testament, thinkin' * Suffer little children' led to breach o' discipline, and 'Our Father' too comfortin' and free a way o' speech to be advisable. "We never heard o' Ephraim for nigh two years, and before we did his mother died. The doctor called it lung fever, but it was just shame and sorrow, together with opening the winder a crack at night, when the wind made queer noises, to hear if be was comin'. 'If ever he comes home,' she said, 'don't raise the past. And if he don't come, back him up all you 're able when- ever you can.' "Then I rented out the farm for ready money, and moved down here so as to save a little to help him if the right time came. I knew he 'd never come back though, and I was content he should n't, for I felt her grave between us. Then like Job BROOK SUNFLOWER A COMPOSITE FAMILY 26 1 in his sorrow, I went out to dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in rocks, — to become a 'brother to dragons and a companion to owls/ Not that there were even exactly drag- ons hereabouts (nothing worse than catamounts), but I dreaded folks and found the ice storms kinder than their jedgments, and God more often encouragin' and to be met with in walkin' in the wood path in the cool o' the day, than restrained and havin' meanin's that he never meant put into his mouth up in the meetin' house. "After maybe ten years of hearin' from Eph now and then, the letters bein' from first one state and then another, he wrote he 'd settled in Calif orny and was growin' grapes for wine-makin'. Then for a year he wrote often and pestered me to come out to him. But I wa'n't constituted to transplant and leave my haunts here, and her up yonder, so I sent him a bit of money, promised more, and told him, so 's to make him feel I was trustful, and not to hurt his pride, if he did n't need it, to keep it for me. "He wrote back and said he was well-to-do, and would turn any money I sent to account to make me rich! It sounded just so like him, but I did n't let myself doubt his word, and next I knew, 262 A COMPOSITE FAMILY one Christmas he sent me a good gun, my fish- ing-rod another, and then a box o' wine — that sick school-marm that loved posies that I told you of got most of it — and so on. Then I did n't hear so often, though I sent him a trifle once a year. A couple o' years ago he wrote he was married, been married quite a spell, but never said when or to who; and now it 's forty years next Spring since he went away, and Ephraim's dead." Time o' Year paused, went over to the well, drew up a bucket, filled the tin dipper, offered it to me, then took a long draught, replaced the faded flower in the buttonhole of his shirt with a fresh pink, and returned to the chopping -block again. "His bein' dead ain't all. He did do well in grape farmin' and minin' ventures here and there, and his partner sent me on a letter, to make sure I was alive; and when I answered it sayin' I was, and askin' particulars, back come a check for all I 'd scraped together and sent Eph, swelled out as big and unknowable as a thin face that 's stung by bees. He had laid it out to profit for me, me who was half doubtin' all the while, and he 'd fixed things so I 'd get it anyhow." I could see the veins in the old man's forehead A COMPOSITE FAMILY 263 knot and his speech struggle in his throat as, to conceal it, he drained the dipper again. Then, coming back, he fumbled in a leather wallet worn inside his shirt, and drew out a strip of paper bearing the five figures that would not only place Time o' Year beyond need, but make him a per- sonage among the neighboring farming folk. As I was about to tell my pleasure, he raised his hand. "'Sh! that's not all. I ain't reached the real trouble yet. He was married, it turned out, more 'n twenty years ago, and he 's left a grown-up darter, and last night the carrier brought this letter, and was terrible curious about it." And from his pocket Time o' Year drew a square en- velope of lilac paper, heavily scented, and addressed in a bold, nervous hand, his name prefixed with Squire, and "Hill Crest Farm" added to the usual address. It read: DEAR GRANDFATHER: Now that dad is dead, I have no people but you. Dad married ma right out of the convent, where she, having no people, was left a baby. When I was born, she died, and I lived at the vineyard with dad until it was time to send me off to school to be rubbed up a bit, like the other girls, and then I went for four years to San Francisco, and only got back a year ago. 264 A COMPOSITE FAMILY Last Winter when father got ill, and we went over to the beach and stayed in a hotel, then I found it was just the right thing to come from eastern people. There were girls that scored high from having come from fighters in that old shindy between England and the States — Daughters of the Revolution, they called themselves, and wore pins according to the States they claimed, as proud as peacocks. Dad said your grandfather was a general in that war, and that he would get me the papers proving it, but he died be- fore he did it. Now, grandfather, I 'm going to marry daddy's young partner, who was raised east, though his grandfather did n't fight, and I don't want anything you can buy me for a wedding present, because I 've enough money. But I do want you to fix me up those papers and send me a few bits of the family silver and a picture of you, the oil painting dad says hung in the dining-room, and perhaps the family Bible with the old silver clasps, if you can spare it, — something to show, you know, for family relics when we have the eastern crowd out to see the vineyards. And do write me about yourself. How many hands do you keep, and do you reap with steam or horse power ? Some day I 'm going to surprise you with a visit and coax you back here with me, next Spring maybe. How do you like my last picture ? It looks sad in a black dress, but I 'm really never sad, and I love pretty, fluffy clothes. Adieu. Don't forget the papers and the silver. Your affec. ALOIS. Daddy said Lois was his mother's name and Adele was my mother's, so he pieced them together for mine— A-lois, my patron saint. NEW ASTER A COMPOSITE FAMILY 265 The photograph was of a girl of perhaps eigh- teen, with a strong, oval face, black hair and eyes, speaking of Spanish blood, and nostrils that curved like those of a spirited horse. I gained time by looking at it a moment, and then faced Time o' Year, who was gazing at me with a pitifully sad, hunted expression in his gray eyes. "I don't mind that she 's a Romanist — the woods has driv' such distinguishin' feelin' out o' me — but why need he have made out things to her so differint, so much better 'n they be that they '11 give him the lie after he 's gone, even if I say nothing," he whispered, half to me and half to the river. "We never had family silver except six teaspoons and the little tea-caddy that came from Lois' grandaunt. The Bible never had clasps, and it was hers and I can't give it; there 's no oil por- trait. My grandfather never was a general, jist a plain soldier. He did fight with Putnam, though, and fit good too, and so did her great-grandfather." "Send her the record of two fighting ancestors, to make up for the lack of one general," I said, the pathos of it all dimming my eyes. "Have the papers made out and I will have them copied on a piece of parchment with a border of wood flowers. Then you can make a frame for them yourself from 266 A COMPOSITE FAMILY I* birch-bark. Send her the tea- caddy and that odd mahogany chair that stands inside the cabin door, but say you do not wish to give away the Bible. As for the portrait, I will take a picture of you with your rod and fishing - basket which will neither lie A COMPOSITE FAMILY 267 nor shame you, and it will please her. As for the rest, we must think it out, but this is enough to start with ; and there is no need of making a mystery of the fact that you have a granddaughter who wishes to join the Society of the Daughters of the Revolution, for that is a matter as well un- derstood among these hills as elsewhere. Have the papers ready the next time I come, and that 1 fidgety young lady ' with the flowery hat will gladly print and decorate them for you, I am sure." "There 's nobody like womenfolks for either scenting out trouble or curing it," said Time o' Year, a more peaceful expression replacing the pained one which his face had worn. "And as you say, backed by Scripter, as it were, mending part of the evil is sufficient for one day and a part of the lie can be eased up without sharing it." "Yes, and another part, too, and honestly; for do you remember that you were living in the farm- house and not the cabin when Ephraim went away? He knew nothing about that ; so in his loneliness he must have looked back at his home and mother until its comforts and grandeur seemed far greater than they were, the fields broader and the hill- crest it stood on far higher. Perhaps, dear old 268 A COMPOSITE FAMILY friend, when we have the wedding gifts ready to go, you may see your way to living at the farm again." "Yes, an' back up Eph 's well as I can, — though it 's only his memory, — as she asked, help him by halvin* that last mistake that mebby came through homesickness," said Time o' Year, catching his breath as he moved slowly toward the river path, desiring to be alone. I sat still a moment, looking across the meadows glowing with bright flowers, before I went to re- lease Nell. We lingered on the river road awhile before going over the hills, for the breeze was taking a noon nap. The New England Aster in its first freshness bloomed in its favorite haunt, the moist edge between road bank and river. What a strik- ing plant this is when seen standing in uncrowded groups close to the water, its rough green leaves veiling the stout stem which, at the height of four or five feet, is crowned with clusters of rich purple flowers, giving a perfect foreground to the river picture that disappeared in the shadows of a green cave, whose walls were low -arching trees. Surely this is the most admirable of all the Asters! A COMPOSITE FAMILY 269 Along the road that traverses the Hemlocks the various shade-loving Asters kept us company, — the familiar White Wood with rather heart - shaped, toothed leaves and white ray- flowers, and the tall, white, Flat Topped, with sparse ray -flowers gathered in flat heads like Yarrow. On the dry and rocky ground in the Hemlock woods themselves, a few Composites of several tribes had found footing, and a great bunch of the dark- stemmed Stout Ragged Goldenrod filled a gap between the Hemlock trunks through which the distant waters of the Sound were visi- ble, making withal a charming picture. By the time we were over the hills, the sun was veiled in gray haze, and the breeze abroad again, bringing a message that a long line of surf was murmuring to the beach, the promise 270 A COMPOSITE FAMILY of a cold August storm before the next high tide should reach its utmost sand mark. Not alone in Sunflower Lane and by the way- sides do - the Composites throng; the beach-crest, well within reach of the high storm tides, has its colony also, where lives the suc- culent Seaside Goldenrod which may be easily identified by its star - shaped flower -heads and thick leaves. There the wheel tracks in the road to the beach cottages are outlined by the evergreen - looking bushes of White Wreath Aster with bristling leaves and crowded flowers, while on the beach edge itself and on drifted sand islands all through the Sea Gardens the dark wands of Blazing Star, set with bright purple, thistle - like flowers, lure one into the re- gion where the Fragrant Everlasting mingles with the purplish white flow- ers of the dwarf Pine Starwort that lodges in the grass, the leaves sugges- A COMPOSITE FAMILY 271 tive of prickly evergreens like those of the White Wreath Aster. Oh, those Gardens of the Sea with their lavish yield of beauty, spread forth freely for the seeing and the gathering! The glowing flower colors sweep broadly, even as the waves on the beach beyond the sand crest, over the rich black earth that is in one spot brackish and marshy and in another dry and crumbling, the dividing line being, perhaps, merely a ridge of wind- drifted sand. The Sea Gardens are the Market Places of the Flower Kingdom, in even a greater degree than the way- sides, for owing to this blending of moist and dry land, plants of divers natures find footing and stand well- nigh side by side, — Beach Plum and Service Berry, Thistle and Water Plantain, Wood Lily and Sun- drops; while Rose Mallows, Wild Rice, Salt Marsh Fleabane and Samphire wade into the water on the muddy side of a tide channel, and on the higher sandy edge perch Fragrant Everlasting, Knotweed, 272 A COMPOSITE FAMILY Beach Heather, Rabbit's Foot Clover and a wealth of Asters; — all growing in patches and long trails, as if these gardens were the Magician's nurseries for the testing and proving his wild -flower crop. As the tide rose, the sky grew more leaden, and the surf called louder, the air became chilly, and that night a fire on the hearth greeted the master, twenty degrees having slid down the mercury in the thermometer since noontime. Surely the New England climate, mingling Autumn with Summer, like all other things of the Magician's realm, man, beast, bird, and flower, is a Composite! X WAYFARERS MANY moods lead us to seek the flower in the landscape; as many as the months, and like them, grouping naturally into four seasons. First the awakening, the mood inti- mate, that draws to close contact and minute in- spection, in contrast to the mood impersonal, that sees from afar and is satisfied with wide expanse and general effect. The insatiable ranging mood implies a dash of sporting blood in the veins; while the passive mood of the mere spectator, for whom the passing of the flower pageant is an unexacting amusement, is by far the most usual of all. As man, in the making of highways and the threading of grassy lanes, has invaded the haunts of the wild flowers, these in turn, true to their R 273 274 WAYFAREllS native soil, surviving the slightly changed conditions, have become wayfarers, thronging the shaded banks, open borders, and runnels beside travelled roads, according to the locality traversed. There, pro- tected by fences from plow and brush -hook, they form a wayside calendar of the year, a guide to the happenings in wood, field, and swamp, that those who may not go afield on foot may ride and read. A roll-call of the wayfarers that can be found by the wheel-tracks that back the sand dunes, bor- dering the raised road across the Sea Gardens, hedge Sunflower Lane, follow the turnpike through Lone- town, and round about the Den District to Tree- bridge, would be to repeat the list of the entire local flora, from the vagrant Tansy of waste places to the delicate Maidenhair Fern, half concealed by way- side bushes; — save perhaps some of the rarer Or- chids, and the plants of deep bogs, through which, as a matter of course, if roads are built, the neces- sary drainage changes the characteristics of growth. Many garden flowers also make their escape from cultivation first as wayfarers, having been trans- ported by seed or root in earth used for filling gul- lies or the space between road and fence, from thence travelling across lots to complete freedom WAYFARERS 275 that, after a generation or so, places them in the ranks of naturalized plants. To find the smaller flowers, whether in wood or by the wayside, the quest must be on foot, but many an entrancing flower landscape has come in my range when sauntering with a comfortable horse along the byways; and these pictures are the more sympathetic from the human interest that the bit of road lends to them, for the vistas opened by it through the trees give a depth of focus wholly lacking in the un- cleared wood or rolling meadow. Also, a wide knowledge of the berry- bearing shrubs and smaller trees of any locality may be had merely from fol- lowing the trail of an average country road the season through. In May the Shad- bush and various Thorns, together with 276 WAYFARERS the native Apple, Dogwoods, and Viburnums, com- bine to draw the eye from the low, moist woods, where the leafage begins to shut out the sun that at the first coming of Spring awakened the Marsh Marigold and Adder's Tongue. PussyWillow, the pet name of the Glaucous Wil- low, Salix discolor, is the first catkin to give a hint of Spring in the uppergrowth, but its little fur pads seem better calculated to greet a March snowstorm than a melting April shower. At this time the faithful yellow wands of Willow trees of river banks and along wet waysides are the olive branches that pledge a season of peace from Winter storms before the snow has wholly retreated and left the earth free. Shadbush, then, is the first wayfaring shrub to wear a complete flower of really decorative quality, the delicate down upon the unfolding leaf, with its suggestion of hoar frost, being as attractive as the blossom itself. The Thorns, both as ornamental shrubs and small trees, may be seen along brush -edged roads at any time from the opening of the Yellow - fruited Dwarf Thorn the first week in May, until June, when the flower -clusters of the Cockspur Thorn, a species which often reaches tree height, WAYFARERS 277 call attention to its stout spikes, that sometimes grow four inches in length, serving to identify it. Of some half dozen native species of Thorn that may be found in byways, the Red -fruited is perhaps the most striking, both from its flowers and orna- mental fruit, while the White Hawthorn or Eng- lish May is to be seen in the Lonetown region guarding gateless gaps in old stone walls, to- gether with the Lilacs, telling the story of van- ished homes. The foliage of the Hawthorn is always crisp and clear-cut, and the flowers well set and symmetrical. Where a mass of the bushes, untrimmed and throw- ing out long sprays, forms a natural hedge, the effect of a solid barrier is lent to the landscape — an effect wholly different from that given by either Dogwoods, Viburnums, or Elder flowers, and making one wish that the climate would allow the Hawthorn's uni- versal use to make in America living fences such as border even the railways of the Old World. The Choke Cherry is also frequently a wayfarer, and though, when untrimmed, it grows ten feet in height, its constant repression by the roadside stub scythe usually keeps it a dwarf bush. In blooming time its foliage, which is of the plum -leaf type, alone separates it at a casual glance from the Black 278 WAYFARERS Wild Cherry of cordial -yielding fruit and poisonous leaf, for the flowers are similar. But whosoever in early August mistakes the one for the other, and eats the dark red, translucent fruit, will dis- cover the mistake, and learn also at the same time from what the plant derives its name, by promptly choking, as poor Flower Hat did; because, though I had warned her, she could not believe that any- thing that "looked so well could be so perfectly horrible — quite as bad as the nitrate of silver that I had my throat swabbed with last winter." Her second experience with the deceptive fruit of the Wild Crab Apple, a beautiful but astringent member of a kindred family, was equally distressing. WAYFARERS 279 Two Apples may be called wayfarers hereabout. The common Apple has escaped so freely from orchards, to grow, ungrafted, under the protection of old walls that it has become quite a tree of the high- ways. Though the fruit is bitter, the flowers grow in great profusion, and are pinker than those on grafted trees. The more slender tree of the truly Wild American Crab Apple is a decided landscape flower of roadside tangles and light wood edges. The blossoms of this Crab are deep pink, the buds be- ing often tipped with carmine. The exquisite per- fume has a distinctly wild quality, a fragrance that is shared by the small yellow apple itself, though the fabled Dead Sea fruit could not have been more disappointing than the taste of this Wild Crab. I have known even Nell, after whinnying to call my attention to a shower of the apples lying like yel- low leaves inside a fence out of her reach, to drop the half -chewed fruit with an impatient puckering of the lips and a shake of the head that plainly said in horse talk, "How could you play such a stone - for-bread trick upon your aged friend?" To May and June also belong the Dog- woods, Viburnums, and both the Red- and Black- berried Elders. In these months, to travel the road from the Lilac House past Tree -bridge to the 280 WAYFARERS Forge Mill Pond, is to pass between open ranks of shrubs that rival in beauty anything that the garden can produce. Hereabout the Dogwoods belong to the latter half of May, when the showy White - flowering Cornel by the roadside gives the signal for the rest of the family to unfurl. The alter- nate-leaved Cornel, with green bark, has flat clusters of white flowers, followed by hand- some berries, also white. Set upon coral red stems, it grows in clumps by this road, together with the Silky Cor- nel with its purplish twigs, rounder bunches of white flowers and lead- blue berries that are of the whortleberry shape and broader than long; while in early June the brilliant twigs of the Red Osier Dogwood, in wet spots and runnels, bear white flower - clusters and white berries. All the Dogwoods have small flowers that, like the composites, are rendered conspicuous by massing, while WAYFARERS 28 1 the berries are of varied hues, and as they remain throughout the season are an important means of identification. The two common Spireas, the pink Steeple Bush and the white Meadow Sweet, are also way- farers, Steeple Bush choosing wet places, while Meadow Sweet as often hedges tumble - down fences with its fragrant feathery plumes. The Red- berried Elder has very graceful, clear-cut compound leaves, ending in sharp points. Its flower - clusters are long, somewhat like small bunches of whitish Lilacs, while those of the Black -berried spe- cies are flat. This Red-berried Elder becomes a conspicuous wayfarer at the time that unfolding Beech leaves hang in velvety limpness and the Hobble Bush or Wayfaring Tree of the smooth, purplish bark is only beginning to reveal the white in the buds that will soon open into flat bunches of flowers, with florets resembling those of the gar- den Snowball. Whenever the road divides shady banks, the Maple -leaved Cornel shows its clearly -marked foli- age, that wears such lovely shades of pink in the late Summer and Autumn as to win for the plant a place in the landscape far beyond the deserts of either its inconspicuous white flowers or its black 282 WAYFARERS fruit. Of the common Viburnums, the Arrow- Wood, with gray branches, white -clustered flowers of the Dogwood type, and blue fruit, shading to black, and the Sweet Viburnum are the most no- ticeable. Sweet Viburnum, locally known as Nanny Berry, is an extremely handsome shrub, when left undis- turbed often growing into a tree of twenty -five or thirty feet in height, covered with shining, saw- edged leaves, and in late May topped with a pro- fusion of flat bunches of fragrant, small, white flowers. The growth is very thick and close, the twigs being somewhat spiny, so that Black Thorn is among its local names. This habit of growth has been noticed by the thrifty Hungarians who are venturing into Lone- town, and I have seen a chicken pen, fenced by the straight bushes, set a few inches apart and bound together by a couple of strands of copper wire, evidently dropped from the outfit of the long distance telephone company, in some of its wanderings across country. The Sweet Viburnum is easily transplanted, and succeeds finely if deep, rich soil is given it, being not only a shrub of great beauty, but an attraction to birds from its edible fruit. In traversing hillside WAYFARERS 283 roads and looking over distant meadows whose edges catch the rich wash of cultivated fields, close hedges of Sweet Viburnum can be seen, making natural fences suggestive of English Hawthorn. "I don't see how folks can get out o' takin' notice o' posies, even if they never goes off turn- pikes, or sets a foot out o' wagons," said Time o' Year one day back in June, as he paused to chat while he was crossing the Tree -bridge road a lit- tle above the old cider mill. His buttonhole held that morning a bunch of Wild Rosebuds, the long green calyx -points fringing the carmine -pink that peeped between, while as he spoke he pressed with his foot the loosened soil about the roots of a plant of yellow Hop Clover that had been partly washed from its position on the roadbank. "Take jest common Clovers, now, not growin' in fields for a crop, but strayed out by themselves here along the road. There 's lots to see in 'em, — differences o' leaf and blossoms, and it must be allowed few plants is so purty and neat and useful all to onct. "What draws Clover along the edges o' the road so? I reckon it 's the wash o' the road dung that blows around and settles, and then the leaf ashes 284 WAYFARERS on top o' that. Somebody 's allus firing leaves along roads, and Clover 's jest bound ter foller ashes. "Did yer ever notice now how this Yaller Clover has an upward pointin' narrer leaf that 's grassy to the feel? The White one's leaf is rounder and opens out more, though it feels stiff and crispy, too. But Pink Clover 's got soft, downy leaves o' several shapes, and the leaf pieces are mostly marked out with lighter green as fine as posies. Then there 's the little, dry-stalked kind, that 's no account for fodder and grows up in the sand wash o' top of the hill, that 's got kind o' furry - colored flowers soft as Pussy Willers. Yes, there 's a sight to be seen even in Clovers !" Time o' Year speaks truly; there is much beauty both of detail and effect to be found by the way- side, that for various reasons is passed over, the chief being because it is close at hand. To the usual traveller Clovers and grasses are merely species of fodder weeds, from their location; but every plant that lends color to even the ground- work of the landscape should win admiration. The dwarf, sand-growing Clover, known as Rabbit's Foot, — as Time o' Year says, "soft as Pussy Willers," — is a most unique little specimen WAYFARERS 285 (I had almost said creature, so like caterpillar wool or soft fur is the color and texture of its flower - heads), and is largely overlooked, though it blos- soms all Summer in places where little else is found but the un- lovely Tick Tre- foils and Sand Knotweeds. "Then take all kinds o' thorny and bramble flowers that grows along turnpikes," con- ^3^° tinued Time o' Year, "and there's picters for yer, painted out and framed. Jest look at the big High -bush Blackberries yonder, the prickles all hid under a load o' white bloom, and these Low -bush ones climbin' up the bank, not to speak o' Thimble - berry canes growin' up between those old millstones on the south side. "As fer Roses and White Elder blows, come three weeks more and no one with eyes can go on the forge crossroad and not be struck of a heap. 286 WAYFARERS There 's prickly low -bushed Roses by the wheel - tracks, and goin' up the bank, all dressed out in pink that 's e'ena'most red. Then taller bushes back along the fence — their flowers are lighter, with longer stems and less thorns. The White -flowerin' Elder backs 'em up, and then goes off alone across lots where the young Locusts grow, jest hedgin' the ground in fit for gardins. "If it 's out o' season for Roses and such, there 's always Wild Carrot — that 's a plague straight through un- less yer take conso- lation in observin' its flower bunches. It has as many spokes as an umbrella, that move up and down much the same, the bunches bein' nice and sort o' slope -topped when in full bloom, then flattenin' and curlin' up outward as it makes seed, for all the world like an umbrella that 's WILD BERGAMO T WAYFARERS 287 turned inside out and wrecked. I tell yer, if yer want to find some nice posies and good sniffin's by the way, jest go up the Glen Road toward George- town some day 'long 'n July. There 's Rose- flowered Raspberries up there, settin' between the rocks, and a strong-smellin' purple flower, that I can't name, only to say it 's shaped like Bee Balm, a-growin' along the fences the same as if a gar- den of it had broke loose; and jest beyant there 's a lot of yaller Wild Senna, flowers that look like tall Pa'tridge Peas growin' in long bunches." Thus admonished, and being in that neighbor- hood at the right time, we turned Nell into the Glen Road, which, before entering the woods, ran for a space between waste fields fenced by tumble- down stone walls, with occasional openings guarded by moss-grown chestnut or cedar bars, so long disused that Wild Grapes and vines of climbing Bittersweet or Waxwork were using them as trellises. The wayside growth was luxuriant, and typical of the season, but offered no novelties until the eye, following the fence line, was arrested by a flowery bank of unusual color, not blue, nor pur- ple, exactly, but a pale combination of the two, a sort of rosy suffusion blending with it. 288 WAYFARERS A nearer view showed slender green stems two feet or so in height, set with pairs of thin, rather slender pointed leaves, each stem crowned by a head of flowers, in shape resembling the red Bee Balm, as Time o' Year had said, but of a color difficult to name, as it appeared under the varied play of light and shade before the pasture bars where the plants had established themselves, with the evident intention of some time appropriating the entire field within, as the outposts could now be seen here and there between the white -flowered Moth Mulleins. This flower, in the hand, proved to be Wild Bergamot of pungent odor, one of the Mint tribe, but in the landscape, set amid varied greens, and separated by the background of gray, lichen -cov- ered bars from wild fields dyed with the dull red of Sheep Sorrel, it made another of the many pic- tures whose color can be retained only by the memory. A few rods farther on, the wayside growths changed again, showing the effects of sandy soil and a location that had once been wooded, and where now fragrant foliage made up for the lack of flowers. On each side of the narrowed way, Sweet Fern and Bayberry- bushes touched the wheels, yielding their wholesome perfume freely. WAYFARERS 289 Both of these woody shrubs belong to the same family, but while the Sweet Fern, with its scal- loped leaves, grows only to the height of two or three feet, the Bayberry may attain a height of six or eight, its clean, smooth -edged leaves looking as if they ought to be evergreen, even though they are not, wherefore they are of much color value as background among lighter and more perishable Summer foliage. The chief fame of Bayberry, aside from the 2QO WAYFARERS excellent keeping quality of its fragrant branches when used to fill the great jars in Summer fire- places, comes from its adhesive gray berries. From these a waxy substance is obtained that in Colonial times was much prized for candle - making and such uses, the plants being one of the few shrubs of sand dunes, growing profusely along the eastern seacoast, where it is still called Candleberry. Presently the roadside became shady on the left, while on the right a rocky ledge dropped abruptly to the river. The wooded bank, sloping upward to a crest of Hemlocks and Cotton Poplars, was green with Ground Pine, Laurels, and Christmas Ferns, while at the other side was an irregular line of low shrubs with downy leaves, suggesting both those of the Sugar Maple and Wild Grape, among which were panicles of purple - pink flowers, having the fringed stamens, shape, and quality of small Wild Roses, that named them as WAYFARERS 29 I Purple - flowering Raspberries, whose use is beauty, as the coarse fruit, though edible, is dry and tasteless. Removed from its surroundings or seen where the too bright sunlight fades the peculiar color of its petals, this shrub might be passed by as unat- tractive, but here, between road and river, growing variously in straight ranks that merged into thick clumps, or springing from between rocks and hanging over in almost vinelike profusion between Wild Grape festoons, to be reflected in the water, the color harmonized perfectly and gave the finish- ing touch to one of the loveliest byway pictures I have ever seen. Going into the Glen only far enough to let Nell drink from the old pot-hole stone, to which a spring is led by an open wooden pipe, we turned about, Nell lazily retracing her steps, and I absorb- ing, as best I might, this picture of the shaded road, reversed by the turning and quite different from the first view. The bank that was a flower- ing rockery was now on the left, and the river mir- rored scraps of beauty and drew down the sky until it met and blended with them, while at the en- trance of the Glen the bright sun rested on masses of deep Pink Knotweed that carried the Raspberry WAYFARERS color in a paler tone into the distance, completing the color harmony of the picture. Such vistas are to be looked at and remembered, but they cannot be counterfeited by the hand of man. The Magician only can combine the detail and broad effect that makes them what they are. In September the purple stalks and odd green leaves of the White Wild Lettuce will have replaced the Flowering Raspberry in the Glen, and along the rocky side of the highway, when the Sumacs will become prominent as wayfarers. These are more or less conspicuous all the year, four types being locally plentiful — the Poison Sumac of moist grounds, with the --•^^. white, drooping berries, and the Staghorn, Smooth Upland and Scarlet Sumacs of light wood edges and dry hillsides. These three last are also at- tractive in early Summer, from the brightness of their foliage and the feathery yellow -green of the flower - spikes ; but when the berry -cones redden they seem to step WAYFARERS 2Q3 out from the tangled wild hedges and briar - carpeted waste pastures to suddenly become the most notable of wayfarers. The Upland Sumac has smooth leaves that in Autumn appear varnished, and show little wings along the midrib that unite the leaflets to the central stem. The foliage of this Sumac, besides taking deep rich crimson Autumn tints, has a firm leathery quality that makes it valuable for decora- tive uses, either when freshly gathered or when pressed and massed with the berries of the Stag- horn variety and branches of Bittersweet. The Scarlet is the usual hillside type; the leaves, dark green above, are whitish underneath, and its flower -clusters are often ragged from a mingling of distorted leaves, while the Staghorn Sumac is the tallest type of all, growing to a tree of forty feet, with long leaves of sometimes thirty - one leaflets. The berries of the Staghorn are covered with soft crimson hairs, and the stems and twigs are velvety, suggesting, with its way of branching, a resemblance to immature antlers. These four Sumacs may be seen in Autumn following the inland highways, the types varying according to whether the soil is wet or dry; and these Sumacs, together with the trailing Black- 2Q4 WAYFARERS berry vines, the five -fingered Virginia Creeper of stone walls, the three -leaved bushy vines of Poison Ivy that crown the fence posts, give the key-note of Autumn color that starts like a fire among way- side leaves, and burns upward and inward, until the Summer beauty wastes away and is consumed, and even the tallest Oak of the forest is aflame. STAGHOR.N SUMAC XI THE DRAPERY OF VINES VINES are terrible cur'ous natured things," said Time o' Year, the week after the great August storm that had uprooted trees, swept away frail bridges, gullied the hillsides, and furrowed the fields of standing corn as with a Juggernaut car. He was at work outside his cabin, trying to replace the drapery of vines that concealed the rough chestnut slabs before the wind had rudely rent and twisted them; touching each prostrate branch and relaxed tendril as gently as if it was a sensate thing sorely bruised and wounded. "All that keeps 'em from standing up and being like trees and other plants is weak backbones, that makes 'em fall over and hang hold of some- 295 296 THE DRAPERY OF VINES thing else, which, as I 've observed, likewise often happens with folks. I reckon there 's reason and intention in it, for we could n't get along with- out vines ter take the shiftless look out o' old rail fences, trim up dead trees, and sort o' pull together things that 's all howsome, any more 'n we could do without the leanin' sort o' folks that 's to be found in most families. Outdoors would be mighty lonesome if the woods was all made o' straight Poplars. "Now you'd nat' rally allow leanin' and hangin' on was a mighty simple thing to do, but when you reckon up the different ways they have o' doin' it, 't is n't far to believin' that vines can move and think things out somehow, for many on 'em acts good-intentioned and others pesky, same as folks. "Some vines jest lay flat on the ground, and sort o' trail along, havin' no ambition to go far, and the stem gets covered with dirt so you 'd scarcely know it for a vine, — like Arbutus and Twin Flowers, Pa'- tridge Vine and Ground Pine. Others sends up long branches that grow quick and seem to sort o' feel round uneasy until they touch something to lay hold on. Then they 're up and off sky-high, twist- ing themselves round and round, and climbing like THE DRAPERY OF VINES 297 snakes. Great Bindweed goes that way, pullin' itself up over the weeds, and mebby two vines '11 meet and wind around each other, and climb up in the air. Waxwork does that too, an' Climbin' Hemp. See that lot of it down there by the river, the way it 's prettied up that mess o' Sticktights by coverin' 'em in ? "Then, again, some vines has strong, woody stems with little sort o' roots along 'em which they use, like caterpillars do feet, to stick and walk along by. Three Fingers (Poison Ivy) does that, while Five Fingers (Virginia Creeper) has climbers all made special to claw wood and stone, with little suckers on the end jest like tree -toads' toes. Grapes has these climbers too, lackin' the suckers, and so is obliged to twist 'em round like wires same as Catbrier, which I call pesky, along with Tear Thumb, that 's a mean cussed thing, havin' stem prickles set backward like fish-hook barbs. More yet climbs by 298 THE DRAPERY OF VINES the twiny end of the leaves like Tares, or loopin' and twistin' the whole leaf around like this Bower Vine here." The Bower Vine toward which Time o' Year pointed was a wonderful plant of the Virgin's Bower Clematis, which, by means of long canes of standard Blackberries, had climbed to the cabin eaves and seized upon an overhanging Maple branch to continue its career. Then, buffeted by the storm, it had fallen back in a mass upon the Blackberries in that stage of relaxed perfection of bloom that is followed by the gray -feathered winged seeds. The old man looked quite himself once more, except that the hurried speech, which for one of his silent nature was akin to garrulous, told of ner- vousness. Laying down the hammer, tacks, and bits of leather with which he was fastening the vines in place, until, as he expressed it, they could "feel their fingers again," he went into the cabin and brought out two long envelopes tied up in a legal manner with red tape. "Here be those papers that we spoke about to- gether a spell ago, her claims and mine, all wrote out, a clear title, and swore to by the town clerk over to the Center. He claims — and he knows — TJt THE DRAPERY OF VINES 2QQ that the Society '11 hev ter keep these, but the copies that you 're goin' ter get made in pictures '11 .be for A-lois all right. Now the old doctor thet 's dead, he had fam'ly pride, and his folks was all figured out like a tree with roots and branches and what not. I saw it once when I fetched hjm up some fish -flies. I was thinkin' thet I 'd like these here drawn out like two Sugar Maples, such as those in front o' the farm up there, standin' side by side, and when they 're worked up ter the top, ter have the branches touch. That 's me and her, and then right over that, work in A-lois' picture, kind o' like an Apple, 'cause she 's the last bearin' o' both trees, and she 's goin' ter star,t a new plantin' all over in fresh ground." "But how about using Alois as an Apple on the top of a Maple tree ?" I asked, struggling to take exact account of his directions, for the guidance of Flower Hat in the doing of this curious task for which I stood sponsor. "I asked the doctor that about his'n, which was plainly an Oak tree, and yet ev'ry name was writ on an Apple. He laughed and said it was the way with fam'ly trees, — they took on cur'ous con- trary grafts that would kill any other kind, and often upset Scripter by bearin' Figs on Thorns and 300 THE DRAPERY OF VINES w/ Grapes of Thistles. Also, he supposed Apples was a good humblin' fruit to use on such trees ter keep down fam'ly pride and make folks meditate on the fall o' man and the worry o' knowin' too much." When I stowed the papers safely away under the seat of the chaise, the delicate fragrance of Violets seemed to rise from the damp, matted herbage by the river. As I raised my head to catch the wind, after the fashion of a hunting-dog, a habit soon ac- quired by outdoor people on the alert for scent and sound, Time o' Year noticed the expression of inquiry, and said, "No, it ain't Violets. Come and see! Ground Nuts," he added, laconically, pointing to where a mass of bean -like leaves and twisted vine- THE DRAPERY OF VINES 3 9> 90 Beach Pea . . Lathyrus maritimus 302 Bean, Trailing Wild Strophostyles helvola . . . (303) 301 Bearberry Arctostaphylos Uva-Ursi .... 302 Bee Balm, American Monarda didyma 73 Beech Drops, False Hypopitys Hypopitys . . . (112) 113 Beggar's Ticks, Stick-tight . . . Bidens frondosa 333 INDEX AND GLOSSARY 345 Page Bellwort, Large-flowered .... Uvularia grandiflora .... 16, 100 Bergamot, Wild ....... Monarda fistulosa . . (287) 288; 73 Betony, Wood ..... . . . . Pedicularis Canadensis . . . .25,76 Bilberry ... ......... Vaccinium uliginosum ..... 100 Bindweed, Hedge. See Convolvulus. Birch, Black .......... Betula lenta .......... 31 Bitter Buttons. See Tansy. Bittersweet, Shrubby Climbing . . Celastrus scandens .... (329) . 304; 177, 287, 293, 297, 329 Blackberry, High Bush . . . villosus j .285,338 (Rubus nigrobaccus \ Blackberry, Low Bush ..... Rubus trivialis ....... 50, 285 Black-eyed Susan ....... Rudbeckia hirta . . . (251) 243, 248 Blazing Star . . . JL^naria squarrosa ) ( } ^ (Ltatrts squarrosa ) Bloodroot ........... Sanguinaria Canadensis . . (28) . 13. l6> J34 Blue Bells of Scotland ..... Campanula rotundifolia ..... 72 Blueberry, Tall ........ Vaccinium virgatum .... 100, 119 Bluets ............. Houstonia coerulea ....... 27 Blue-eyed Grass ........ Sisyrinchium graminoides .... 226 Blueweed, or Viper's Bugloss . . Echium vulgare ......... 83 Boneset .......... . Eupatorium perfoliatum . . (245) 243 Bouncing Betsy ........ Saponaria officinalis . . . (69) 73, 75 Buckwheat, Climbing False . . . Polygonum scandens . . . (314) 312 Bunch-berry .......... Cornus Canadensis ....... 101 Bur Reed, Broad-fruited . . . . Sparganium eurycarpum . . 43, 116 Bush Ash. See Poison Sumac. Butterfly-weed ......... Asclepias tuberosa .... (236) 234 Butter-and-Eggs. See Toad Flax. Button Bush . ......... Cephalanthus occidentalis . (40) . 40, 51, no Calamint ........... Clinopodium Calamintha .... 74 Calfkill. See Branch Ivy. Calop o n f Limodorum tuberosum ) (142, 145) \Calopogonpulchellus \ 142,145,155 Calypso ............ Calypso bulbosa ...... 127, 140 Campion, Starry ....... Silene stellata ......... 116 346 INDEX AND GLOSSARY Page Candleberry Aleurites triloba 290 Caraway Carum Carui ....... 75, 102 Cardinal Flower ........ Lobelia cardinalis . . . . 54; 25, 89 Carrion Flower Smilax herbacea ..... (313) 311 Carrot, Wild . Daucus Carota .(286) 144, 175,286 Catbrier Smilax rotundifolia . . . (339) . 306; ii, 297, 337, 339 Catnip, Catmint Nepeta Cataria (75) 75 ; 70 Cat-tail, Broad-leaved Typha latifolia . . . (256, 325) . 591 43, 25°» 329 Cedar, Red Juniperus Virginiana . (336) 306, 337 Celandine Chelidonium majus .... 22, 223 Chamomile, Mayweed Anthemis Cotula 69, 245 Checkerberry. See Wintergreen. Cherry, Bird Prunus Pennsylvanica 306 Cherry, Black, Wild . . < . . . Prunus serotina . . .(183) 183,278 Cherry, Choke Prunus Virginiana . . (278) 180, 277 Clear-eye Salvia Sclarea 74 Clematis. See Virgin's Bower. Clethra. See Sweet Pepper-bush. Clover, Pink Trifolium pratense 284 Clover, Rabbit's Foot Trifolium arvense . . (285) 272, 284 Clover, White Sweet, Shamrock . Trofolium repens 284 Clover, Yellow Hop Trifolium agrarium 283 Cohosh, Black Cimicifuga racemosa . . (116) 116 Colic-root, Star Grass Aletris farinosa . . . (191) 144, 195 Columbine, Red Aquilegia Canadensis.(25) 24; 17,26 Coneflower, Green-headed .... Rudbeckia laciniata . . . (251) 248 Coneflower. See Black-eyed Susan. Convolvulus, Wild Convolvulus sepium . (295,316) . 177, 220, 312 Corncockle ( Agrostemma Githago j ig(j {Lychnis Githago ) Cornel, Alternate- leaved .... Cornus alternifolia 280 Cornel, Dwarf. See Bunch-berry. Cornel, Silky Cornus Amomum 280 Cornel, White-flowering. See Flowering Dogwood. Coronilla, Pink Coronilla varia (81) So INDEX AND GLOSSARY 347 Crab Apple, American . . . . f Malus coronaria | >( } ^j£ (Pyrus coronana ) Cranbeny, American jOxycoccus macrocarpus |_ _ \Vaccinium macrocarpon) Creeping Sailor. See Kenilworth Ivy. Daisy, Ox-eye Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum . 245; 69, 221, 223, 248 , ,. (Taraxacum Taraxacum 1245; n, 69, Dandelion J . V 4 (Taraxacum officinale j 221, 243 Dangleberry Gaylussacia frondosa 100 Death Cup Amanita phalloides .... 172, 174 Devil's Paint Brush. See Hawkweed. Dockmackie. See Arrow-wood, Maple-leaved. Dodder, Love Vine Cuscuta Gronovii . . . .45,55,302 Dogwood Family Cornaceae 98 Dogwood, Flowering Cornus florida .... (94, 324) . 99, 101, 106, 213, 280, 322 Dogwood, Panicled . Cornus candidissima . . . (324) 322 Dogwood, Red Osier Cornus stolonifera 280 Dutchman's Breeches fBicuculla Cucullaria )( g) [Dicentra Cucullaria ) Elder, Black-berried, White-flow- ered Sambucus Canadensis . . (279) . 286; 144, 279, 301 Elder, Red-berried .... Sambucus pubens . . (282) 279, 281 Elecampane Inula Helenium .... (76) 79; 69 T, . ~ . (Onagra biennis ) , Evening Primrose J . > 226 ((Enotnera biennis ) Everlasting, Early, Plantain Leaf . Antennaria plantaginifolia . . . 245 Everlasting, Fragrant Life .... Gnaphalium obtusifolium . . 243, 270 (Fceniculum Fceniculum \Fceniculum vulgar ~e Five Fingers. See Virginia Creeper. Flag, Large Blue Iris versicolor (37) 37, 223 Flag, Slender Blue Iris prismatica (219) 226 Flag, Sweet Acorus Calamus 116 Fleabane, Salt Marsh Pluchea camphorata 59, 271 Forget-me-not Myosotis palustris 10 348 INDEX AND GLOSSARY Page Foxglove, Smooth False . . . . (Dasystoma Virginica ) ( } • ( Gerardia quercifoha ) Fumitory, Climbing, or Moun- f Adlumia fungosa | , x tain Fringe \Adlumia cirrhosa ) Gentian, Blue Fringed Gentiana crinita . .(153,242). 241; 10, 140, 152, 302 Gentian, Closed Gentiana Andrewsii . . (53) 55, 302 Geranium, Wild Geranium maculatum . (32) . 25 ; 26, 223 Gerardia, Large Purple . . . . Gerardia purpurea . . (241) 120,240 Gerardia, Oak-leaved. See Foxglove, Smooth False. Gerardia, Seaside Gerardia maritima (59) 58 Ghost Flower. See Indian Pipe. Ginger, Wild Asarum reflexum .... (12) 16,22 Ginseng Panax quinquefolium 117 Ginseng, Dwarf Panax trifolium 24 Glasswort, Slender. See Samphire, Marsh. Golden Club Orontium aquaticum 42 Goldenrod, Anise-scented .... Solidago odora 251 Goldenrod, Blue-stemmed .... Solidago csesia (249) 250 Goldenrod, Bush Euthamia graminifolia 251 Goldenrod, Canada, or Swamp . . Solidago Canadensis . (256) 253, 323 Goldenrod, Cut- leaved Solidago arguta 251 Goldenrod, Elm-leaved Solidago ulmifolia 251 Goldenrod, Seaside Solidago sempervirens . . . (269) 270 Goldenrod, Showy Solidago speciosa 251 Goldenrod, Slender Fragrant . . Euthamia Caroliniana . .(251) 251 Goldenrod, Stout Ragged .... Solidago squarrosa .... (269) 269 Goose Grass Puccinellia maritima 55 Grape, Frost or Chicken .... Vitis cordifolia (305) 308 Grape, Northern Fox Vitis Labrusca 307, 309 Grape, Riverside Vitis vulpina 308, 310 Grass of Parnassus Parnassia Caroliniana . . . . 10, 241 Grass Pink. See Calopogon. Great Bindweed. See Convolvulus, Wild. Ground Nut. See Hyacinth Bean. Hawkweed, Orange Hieracium aurantiacum . (68) 68, 84 Hawthorn Crataegus Oxyacantha . .86, 277, 283 INDEX AND GLOSSARY 349 Page Heartsease Viola tricolor 70 Heath Family Ericaceae . . . 98, 100, 107, 113, 182 Heather, Beach or False Hudsonia tomentosa 272 Hellebore, False, or American White Veratrum viride . . . (4) 9, 100, 180 Hemlock, Poison Conium maculatum (157) 104, 174, 176 Hemlock, Water Cicuta maculata 172, 225 , ,-,,. ,. ( Willughbaea scandens ) / \ Hempweed, Climbing vIL. • j r • '• (297) 297 (.Mikama scandens J Hepatica, or Liverleaf . . f Hepatica Hepaticaj . . . (vii) . {Hepatica tnloba J . . 12; 8, 98, 107 Hobble Bush . ... {Viburnum alnifoliurn j joi> ^ {Viburnum lantanoiaes) ( Falcata comosa 1 Hog Peanut \ . r • - 55> 3OX {Amp hi carp tea monotca ) Hollyhock Althea rosea 80 Honeysuckle, Chinese or Japanese. Lonicera Japonica 81 Honeysuckle, Italian Lonicera Caprifolium 81 Honeysuckle, Trumpet Lonicera sempervirens . . . (306) 306 Honeysuckle, Wild. See Azalea, Pink. Hop Humulus Lupulus 312 Hop Hornbeam Ostrya Virginiana 335 Huckleberry Gaylussacia resinosa 100 Hyacinth Bean, Ground Nut . . J Apios Apios I ... (300) I2o, 301 [Apios tuber osa ) Indian Cucumber Root Medeola Virginiana 24, 102 Indian Fig . . { °Puntia °Puntia I 22g ( Opuntia vulgaris ) Indian Pipe . . Monotropa uniflora .(108) 113595,97 Indigo, Wild False Baptisia tinctoria 149, 169 Iris. See Flag. Ironweed Vernonia Noveboracensis . .221, 243 Ivy, Branch Leucothoe Catesbsei 183 Ivy, Poison (Rhus radicans | (,62,163) . (Rhus Toxicodendron) 162; 5, 158, 165, 294, 302, 304, 308, 321 Jack-in-the-Pulpit Arisaema triphyllum . (12) 118; 16,22 Jamestown Lily, "White Man's Plant." See Jimson Weed. 350 INDEX AND GLOSSARY Page Jewel Weed .......... Impatiens biflora ........ 42 Jill-over-the-Ground , . {Glecoma hederacea | \Nepeta Glee homo. ) Jimson (Jamestown) Weed . . . Datura Stramonium . . (176) 172, 176 Joe Pye Weed . • ........ Eupatorium purpureum . (245) . 243; 64, 249 Johnny-jump-up. See Heartsease. Kenilworth Ivy ........ J Cymbalaria Cymbalaria ) ( } ' ( Linana Cymbalaria j Knotweed, Pink ........ Polygonum Pennsylvanicum (292) . 291 ; 90, 271 Ladies' Slipper. See Moccasin Flower. Ladies' Tresses, Slender .... Gyrostachys gracilis . . . (153) . 151; n, 125, 128, 200, 241 Ladies' Tresses, Nodding .... Gyrostachys cernua ....... 152 Lambkill. See Laurel, Sheep. Larkspur, Blue Wild ...... Delphinium Menziesii ..... 181 Larkspur, Dwarf ........ Delphinium tricorne ...... 181 Larkspur, Wyoming ...... Delphinium Geyeri ..... .181 Laurel, Mountain ........ Kalmia latifolia ..... (101) . 104-106; 26, 39, 119, 159, 182, 219, 290, 336 Laurel, Sheep or Small-leaved . . Kalmia angustifolia .... 106, 183 Leek, Wild .......... Allium tricoccum ........ 100 . {Nabalus albus {Prenanthes alba Lilac ............. Syringa vulgaris ........ 66 Lily, Blackberry ....... jGemmingia Chinensisj . . (78) . {Belemcanda Chtnensis) . . 85 ; 79, 87 Lily, Canada, or Meadow .... Lilium Canadense . . (229, 233) , 230; 220 Lily Family .......... Liliaceae .......... 98, 127 Lily-of-the-valley, Wild. See Shinleaf. Lily, Red Day ......... Hemerocallis fulva . . . (82) 79, 82 Lily, Red Wood ........ Lilium Philadelphicum . . (231) . 231, 271 Lily, Tiger .......... Lilium tigrinum . . .85; 78, 84, 86 Lily, Turk's Cap ........ Lilium superbum ..... (232) 232 Lily, Yellow Pond. See Pond Lily, Yellow. Lettuce, White, Wild . . ) ) INDEX AND GLOSSARY 351 Page Live-forever Sedum Telephium . . . (71) 72, 90 Lizard's Tail . . » . ... .... Saururus cernuus . . . (48) 45, no Lobelia, Great Blue Lobelia syphilitica 240 Loco .Weed, Stemless Spiesia Lamberti 182 Loco Weed, Woolly . . . . . . Astragalus mollissimus Torr . . 182 Loosestrife, Swamp ...... . Decodon verticillatus . . (49, 50) 49 Loosestrife, Yellow ....... Lysimachia vulgaris 234 Lotus, American Nelumbo lutea .,.,-..... 45 Maianthemum. See Solomon's Seal, Two-leaved. Mallow, Rose Hibiscus Moscheutos . . . (60) . 59, 120, 143, 271 Mandrake. See May Apple. Marjoram Origanum vulgare 74, 84 Marsh Marigold Caltha palustris (n) n, 28, 37, 119, 136, 276 Matrimony Vine, or Box Thorn . Lycium vulgare 84 May Apple Podophyllum peltatum . (22) 23, 208 Meadow Beauty Rhexia Virginica 240 Meadow Rue, Tall Late .... Thalictrum polygamum.(229) 230, 309 Meadow Sweet Spiraea salicifolia . (229, 280) 229, 281 Milkweed, Common, or Silkweed { AscleP.ia9 Syriacal • <24°> 3»5) • (Asclepias cornuti ) 235, 253, 312, 328 Milkweed, Four- leaved Asclepias quadrifolia . . . (109) 108 Milkweed, Purple Asclepias purpurascens ..... 235 Milkweed, Swamp Asclepias incarnata 235 Milkwort, Purple ........ Polygala viridescens 144 Mint, Wild Mentha rotundifolia 74 Mitrewort, False Tiarella cordifolia . 24 Moccasin Flower, Pink Cypripedium acaule . . . (132) . 132; 97, 123, 126 Moccasin Flower, Showy . . . {Cypripedium reginae ) ( } (Cypripedium spectabile ) Moccasin Flower, Yellow . . . f Cypripedium hirsutum ) ( } {Cypripedium pubescens) Moneywort Lysimachia Nummularia .... 71 Monkey Flower, Square-stemmed . Mimulus ringens 42 Moonwort Botrychium Lunaria n Morning- Glory, Wild. See Convolvulus. 352 INDEX AND GLOSSARY Moss Pink .... Phlox subulata m Mountain Fringe. See Climbing Fumitory. Mullein, Common Verbascum Thapsus . . . .233,312 Mullein, Moth Verbascum Blattaria 288 Mushroom, Meadow Agaricus campestris .... 172-174 Nanny Berry. See Sheepberry. Nightshade, Black Solanum nigrum (178) 178 Nightshade, Climbing Solanum Dulcamara . . . (177) . 85, 177, 3J2 Oak, Poison, or California Poison Sumac Rhus diversiloba 167 "Old Fog" Grass, Virginia Beard- grass Andropogon Virginicus 326 Orchis, Ragged Habenaria lacera (^s) 149 Orchis, Showy Orchis spectabilis (134) *34 Orchis, Yellow Fringed Habenaria ciliaris . . . (150) . 148; 150, 155 Orpine. See Live-forever. Oswego Tea. See Bee Balm. Painted Cup Castilleja coccinea . . . .25, 26, 223 Parsnip, Cow Heracleum lanatum .... 144, 225 Partridge Pea . Cassia Chamaecrista .... 234, 287 Partridge Vine or Berry Mitchella repens (33 1) . no; 40, 173, 296, 330 Peppermint Mentha piperita 84 Phlox, Garden Phlox paniculata 90 Phlox, Wild Blue Phlox divaricata (in) in Pickerel Weed Pontederia cordata . (44), 34, 45, 89 Pigeon Berry, or Garget. See Pokeweed. Pinxter- flower. See Azalea, Pink. Pipsissewa, Spotted, or Spotted Wintergreen Chimaphila maculata . (115) 114, 117 Pipsissewa. See Prince's Pine. Pitcher-plant Sarracenia purpurea .... (43) 42 Plantain, Robin's f Erigeron P^hellus ) \Engeron belhdifolius) Plantain, Water (Alisma Plantago aquatica j ^ \Ahsma Plantago ) INDEX AND GLOSSARY 353 Page Plum, Beach Prunus maritima 149, 271 Pogonia, Rose Pogonia ophioglossoides 125, 140, 142, 152 Poison Ash,. Dogwood, Elder, Sumac. See Sumac. Poison Hemlock. See Hemlock. Poison Ivy. See Ivy. Pokeweed Phytolacca decandra . . . (179) 179 Pond Lily, Yellow (Nymphaea advena) 38 (Nupnar advena j Poppy, Mexican Argemone Mexicana 89 Prickly Pear . . J°Puntia °P«ntia I . (22g) 22O, 228 [Opuntia vulgaris) Prince's Feather ..... . . Polygonum orientale 90 Prince's Pine .......... Chimaphila umbellata .... 117 Privet Ligustrum vulgare .... 82, 86, 306 PussyWillow Salix discolor . (i) 276; 6, 16, 321, 332 Pyrola. See Shinleaf. Pyxie Pyxidanthera barbulata . . . 302, 304 Raspberry, Purple-, or Rose-flow- ering Rubus odoratus . . . (290) 287, 291 Rattlebox Crotalaria sagittalis 182 Rattlesnake Plantain ..... fPeramium pubescens) ( 154) i55 5 125, [ Goodyera pubesc e ns J 140, 150, 188 Red-bell. See Columbine. Red-ink Plant. See Pokeweed. Rhododendron, American, or Rose Bay Rhododendron maximum .... 104-106; 26, 159, 183 Rice Grass, or Wild Rice .... Zizania aquatica 271, 326 Rose Campion. See Corncockle. Rose, Cinnamon Rosea cinnamomea 82 Sabbatia. See Sea Pink. Samphire, Marsh Salicornia herbacea . (51) 59; 50,271 Sarsaparilla, Wild Aralia nudicaulis . . . (103) 24,102 Sassafras . . j8398^ Sa!safra* I I7g [Sassafras offictnale j Savory Satureia hortensis 75 Saxifrage Saxifraga Virginiensis . . . . 13, 16 W 354 INDEX AND GLOSSARY Page Sea Lavender Limonium Carolinianum .... 121 Sea Pink ...... . . . . . Sabbatia stellaris ........ 59 Self- Heal . . . . . . . , . . Prunella vulgaris 76 Senna, Wild . . . . Cassia Marylandica 287 Service Berry . -. Amelanchier Canadensis . . . .271 Shadbush ......*.... Amelanchier Botryapium . (30) . 30; 15, 19, 275 Sheepberry, Black Thorn .... Viburnum Lentago 282 Sheep Sorrel Rumex Acetosella 228 Shinleaf, or Round-leaved Win- tergreen Pyrola rotundifolia (93) in Shooting Star, American Cowslip . Dodecatheon Meadia . . . . (95) 95 Silkweed. See Milkweed, Common. Silver Rod . . . . .... . . . Solidago bicolor (251) 250 Skunk Cabbage Spathyema foetida . . . .(4,8). 8, 14, 69, 180, 219 Snake-mouth. See Pogonia. Sneezeweed. See Sunflower, Swamp. Snow on the Mountain. See Spurge, White-margined. Solomon's Seal, False (Vagnera racemosa j (17). (Smilacina racemosa j . . 16, 28, 139 Solomon's Seal, Larger . (P'lygonatum commutatum j l6 [Polygonatum giganteum ) Solomon's Seal, Two-leaved . . {Unifolium Canadense ) . 28, \Maianthemum Convallana j 100,139 Spearmint Mentha spicata 74, 77 Spice Bush . . (Benzoin Benzoin \ . . (333) . (Benzoin odoriferum j . . n, 69, 330 Spikenard Aralia racemosa 116 Spirea, Meadow Sweet. See Meadow Sweet. Spring Beauty Claytonia Virginica . (19, 28) 21, 88 Spurge, Caper Euphorbia Lathyris 170 Spurge, Cypress Euphorbia Cypam-sias . (71) 71, 170 Spurge, White-margined .... Euphorbia marginata 170 Squaw Weed Senecio obovatus 29 St. John's-wort, Common .... Hypericum perforatum 234 Staggerbush Pieris Mariana (^i) 183 Starflower. See Chickweed Wintergreen. INDEX AND GLOSSARY 355 Page Star Grass, Yellow ....... Hypoxis hirsuta . . . (227) 29, 226 Star of Bethlehem Ornithogalum umbellatum .... 69 Steeple Bush Spiraea corymbosa . (286) 42, 230, 281 Sumac, Dwarf Upland Rhus copallina 292 Sumac, Poison ..... . . . {Rhus V«nix I • • ('68> l68= >&' (Rnus venenata ) 167, 192, 197, 292 Sumac, Smooth or Scarlet .... Rhus glabra 292 Sumac, Staghorn . IRhus hirta 1 . (294) 292 (Rhus typhtna j 0 , f Kneiffia fruticosa ) / f\ f Sundrops \ }- . (226) 226, 271 I (Enothera fruticosa ) Sunflower, Brook Bidens laevis . . . (243,260)253; 333 Sunflower, Common Garden . . Helianthus annuus . (246) 90, 120, 221 Sunflower, Swamp Helenium autumnale .... 160, 171 Sunflower, Giant Helianthus giganteus .... 244, 248 Sweet Cicely, Smooth . . . . . fWashingtonia longistylis ) .103, 176 (Osmorhtza longistylis ) Sweetbrier Rosa rubiginosa 229 Sweet Fern ( Comptonia peregrina ) (Comptonia asplemjolia ) Sweet Pepper-bush, White Alder . Clethra alnifolia . (52) 51,107,110,239 Sweet William, Wild Phlox maculata in Tansy, or Bitter Buttons Tanacetum vulgare . . (275) 248; 69, 274 Tear-Thumb, Halberd-leaved . . Polygonum arifolium .297; 55,312 Thistle, Bur Carduus lanceolatus 248 Thistle Family Composite 244 Thistle, Scotch Onopordon Acanthium 247 Thistle, Yellow Carduus spinosissimus . . . 226, 247 Thornapple, Stinkweed. See Jimson Weed. Thorn, Cockspur Crataegus Crus-Galli 276 Thorn, Scarlet Crataegus coccinea 277 Thyme, Wild Thymus Serpyllum . . . (75) 70, 75 Thorn, Yellow-fruited Dwarf . . Crataegus uniflora 276 Toad Flax, Yellow , . {Linaria Linfria. I . (2j6) 72, 234 (Linana vulgans ) Trientalis. See Chickweed Wintergreen. 356 INDEX AND GLOSSARY Page Trillium, Large White Trillium grandiflorum . . (96) . 100 ; 99, 192 Trillium, Red, Ill-scented . . . . Trillium erectum ... (15) 16,134 Trumpet Creeper Tecoma radicans 79 Turtlehead . . Chelone glabra . . . .(33) 55,200 Twayblade, Fen Orchis . . . f Leptorchis Loeselii) [Ltparis Lceselii j Twayblade, Large Lily-leaved . jLeptorchis liliifolia) . . (138) . [ Liparis liliifolia J 138; 137,1 46, 155 Twin Flower Linnaea borealis 296 Viburnum, Maple-leaved. See Arrow-wood. Viburnum, Sweet. See Sheepberry. Violet, Bird's- Foot Viola pedata 22 Violet, Blue Palmate Viola palmata 21 Violet, Canada Viola Canadensis 22 Violet, Dog's Tooth. See Adder's-Tongue. Violet, Downy Yellow Viola pubescens .... 22,107,134 Violet, Lance-leaved Viola lanceolata 22 Violet, Smooth Yellow Viola scabriuscula . . 22, 107, 134 Violet, Sweet White (English) . . Viola odorata 22, 70 Violet, Wild Sweet Viola blanda 22 Virginia Creeper , . (Parthenocissus quinquefolia {Ampelopsis quinquefolia (163, 302, 327) 307; 50, 162, 294, 297, 304, 328 Virgin's Bower Clematis Virginiana . (299) . 298; 306, 328 Wake Robin. See Trillium, Red. f Castalia odorata | . . . (44) ,39.45,222 Waxwork. See Bittersweet. Wayfaring Tree. See Hobble Bush. White Thorn. See Hawthorn. White-weed. See Daisy, Ox-eye. Willow, Glaucous. See Pussy Willow. Willow Herb. See Loosestrife, Swamp. Wind-flower. See Anemone, Wood. Winterberry, or Black Alder . . . Ilex verticillata . . (321) 120, 224, 321 Wintergreen, or Checkerberry . . Gaultheria procumbens . 75; 24,98,219 Water Lily, Fragrant White . . |Castalia odorata I • • • ( (Nympnaa odorata j 38; 34,^ INDEX AND GLOSSARY 357 Page Wintergreen, Chickweed .... Trientalis Americana .... 24, 103 Witch Hazel Hamamelis Virginiana . . (334) . 332; 11,96, 136, 337 Woodbine. See Virginia Creeper. Yam, Wild . . Dioscorea villosa (3IQ) 311 Yarrow Achillea Millefolium 269 FERNS Beech Fern, Broad Phegopteris hexagonoptera . (215), 206 Brake (Pteridium aquilinum ( Ptens aquilina Christmas Fern ....... JDryopteris acrostichoides ) {Aspidtum acrostichoid.es ) 104, 187, 197, 290, 322, 330 Cinnamon Fern Osmunda cinnamomea . (185,192) . 193; 18, 30, 123 Clayton's, or Interrupted Fern . . Osmunda Claytoniana . (185) 192; 123 Climbing, or Hartford Fern . . . Lygodium palmatum . . . (185) 189 Common Rock Fern. See Polypody. Flowering Fern ........ Osmunda regalis 191 Grape Fern, Ternate Botrychium ternatum . . . (203) 203 Grape Fern, Virginia ...... Botrychium Virginicum . . . . 203 Hay-Scented Fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula)^) . {Dicksonia ptlostuscula ) 53, 207 Interrupted Fern. See Clayton's Fern. Lady Fern Asplenium Filix-fcemina . (199) . 198; 1 88, 204 Maidenhair Adiantum pedatum . . . (218) . 2I3I 39> x^9> 2°8» 211, 302 Marsh Shield Fern fDryop.eris Thelyp.erisj ( } (Asptdium Tnelyptens ) Meadow Fern Comptonia peregrina 152 New York Fern (Dryopteris Noveboracense )(aoo)> ^ \Aspidium Noveboracense ) Polypody, Common Polypodium vulgare . . . (197) . 195; 104, 187, 322 358 INDEX AND GLOSSARY Page Royal Fern Osmunda regalis . ( 194) 193; 123,142 Sensitive Fern Onoclea sensibilis .... (201) 202 Shield Fern, Crested . .... . f Dryopteris cristata (Asptaium cnstatum Shield Fern, Spinulose .... pryopteris spinulosa | . (204) [Aspidium sptnulosum j Spleenwort, Ebony Asplenium ebeneum . (216) 217, 322 Spleenwort, Maidenhair Asplenium Trichomanes . (211) . 209, 217 Spleenwort, Silver Asplenium Thelypteroides . . . (205, 209) 205 Walking Fern Camptosorus rhizophyllus . (188) 189 Wood Fern, Evergreen . (DryopterismarginalisK^ {Aspidtum marginale ) CLUB MOSSES, ETC. Bog Club Moss ......... Lycopodium inundatum 116 Creeping Selaginella, or Scale Moss. Selaginella apus 116 Ground Pine Lycopodium obscurum 39, 94, 104, 115, 219, 290, 296, 304, 336 Shining Club Moss Lycopodium lucidulum . . .116, 304 Trailing Christmas Green . . . . Lycopodium complanatum . . . .115 Four-Footed Americans and Their Kin By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN. Illustrated by ERNEST SETON-THOMPSON Cloth Crown, 8vo $1.50 net " It deserves commendation for its fascinating style, and for the fund of information which it contains regarding the familiar, and many unfamiliar animals of this country. It is an ideal book for children and doubtless older folk will find in its pages much of interest." — The Dial. "Books like this are cups of delight to wide-awake and inquisitive girls and boys. Here is a gossipy history of American quadrupeds, bright, entertaining and thoroughly instructive. The text, by Mrs. Wright, has all of the fascination that distinguishes her other outdoor books. "-The Independent. Citizen Bird Scenes from Bird- life in plain English for a Beginner By MABEL O. WRIGHT and Dr. ELLIOTT COUES Profusely illustrated by Louis AGASSIZ FUERTES Cloth Crown, 8vo $1.50 net "When two writers of marked ability in both literature and natural history write to produce a work giving scope to their special talents, the public has reason to expect a masterpiece of its kind. In the 'Citizen Bird,' by Mrs. MABEL O. WRIGHT and Dr. ELLIOTT COUES, this expectation is realized — seldom is the plan of a book so admirably conceived, and in every detail so excellently fulfilled."— The Dial. "There is no other book in existence so well fitted for arousing and directing the interest that all children feel toward the birds." — Tribune, Chicago. Birdcraft A Field- Book of Two Hundred Song, Game and Water Birds By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT With eighty full-page plates by Louis AGASSIZ FUERTES "One of the best books that amateurs in the study of ornithology can find . . . direct, forcible, plain and pleasing." — Chautauquan. "Of books on birds there are many, all more or less valuable, but 'Birdcraft,' by MABEL O. WRIGHT, has peculiar merits that will endear it to amateur ornithologists. ... A large number of excellent illustrations throw light on the text and help to make a book that will arouse the delight and win the gratitude of every lover of birds." — Saturday Evening Gaxette, Boston. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 66 Fifth Avenue, New York Tommy -Anne and the Three Hearts By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT With many illustrations by ALBERT D. BLASHFIELD Cloth Crown, 8vo $1.50 "This book is calculated to interest children in nature, and grown folks, too, will find them- selves catching the author's enthusiasm. As for Tommy-Anne herself, she is bound to make friends wherever she is known. .The more of such books as these, the better for the children. One Tommy-Anne is worth a whole shelf of the average juvenile literature." — The Critic. Wabeno, the Magician The Sequel to Tommy -Anne and the Three Hearts By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT Fully illustrated by JOSEPH M. GLEESON Cloth Crown, 8vo $1.50 " Mrs. Wright's book teaches her young readers to use their eyes and ears, but it does more in that it cultivates in them a genuine love for nature and for every member of the animal king- dom. The best of the book is that it is never dull." — "Boston "Budget. The Dream Fox Story Book By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT With 80 Drawings by OLIVER HERFORD Cloth Small quarto $1.50 net Mrs. Wright's new book for young people recounts the marvelous adventures of Billy Ben- ton, his acquaintance with the Dream Fox and the Night Mare, and what came of it. It differs from the author's previous stories, as it is purely imaginative and somewhat similar to "Alice in Wonderland." There are eight full-page illustrations, showing Billy at moments of greatest interest and also seventy drawings scattered throughout the text. These illustrations are by Oliver Herford, who has entered thoroughly into the spirit of the text, so that the pictures seeem an integral part of the story. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 66 Fifth Avenue, New York Q.K i*.