i4o Rhodora 



LJrr.v 



the actual nature and extent of the depredations, which it is its object 

 to prevent. That much needless destruction of our more attractive 

 plants is constantly going on, cannot be doubted. That much of this 

 irreparable loss can be obviated, few will wish to deny. Neverthe- 

 less, modes of practical procedure are as yet difficult to determine 

 owing to the vagueness of the information obtainable regarding the 

 particular places and plants requiring attention. 



Of plants, which are reported as having been exterminated in cer- 

 tain localities, the majority prove on investigation to be those which 

 were once known in the vicinity of large and growing cities. In 

 regard to most of these cases it is evident to the thoughtful that the 

 destruction of the native vegetation is due only in a minor decree to 

 flower pickers. It is far more the result of perfected drainage, the 

 paving of streets, the extention of squalid suburbs, the tramp of many 

 feet, the demoralizing influences of dust and coal smoke, the dump- 

 ing of rubbish, and finally the introduction of foreign weeds. It is 

 evident, therefore, that effective portection of the wild flowers in such 

 situations is quite beyond the power and hopes of this Society. Re- 

 garding any attractive bits of native vegetation still lingering in the 

 immediate vicinity of our cities, it can only commend them to the 

 legal protection of park-commissioners, urging upon these officials 

 the superior beauty of the wild and natural in comparison with any 

 studied arrangement of exotic shrubs. 



lint well out from the shadow of the brick and mortar of our great 

 cities tin- native plants are also being destroyed and in ways so need- 

 less that much may certainly be done for their protection. It is far 

 out in the country that the beautiful patches of mountain laurel and 

 holly are being literally hacked to pieces to furnish the quickly 

 passing decorations of winter balls, city weddings and church festiv- 

 ities. It is about our remote summer resorts in the White Mountains 

 Adirondack^, northern Michigan, and Wisconsin, that the stately paper 

 birches are thoughtlessly stripped of the bark and thus permanently 

 disfigured. It is on Cape Cod that Italian flower gatherers are said 

 to rake together huge bales of trailing arbutus (roots and all), 

 which, brought to the city, yield the innumerable little bunches of 

 (lowers purchased on the streets by persons who never suspect the 

 ruthless destruction wrought by this trade. It is on the southern 

 shores of Cape Ann that the botanically interesting station of the 

 Magnolia glauca — the only locality for this plant in New England 



