24 



MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



fretted and fringed; star-shaped, bell-shaped, salver-shaped, 

 trumpet-shaped; silken banners of iris, bossy targes of 

 helianthus ! 



And this wealth is so lavishly showered. Even into the 

 alleys and waste lots of our cities come some gracious pres- 

 ences ; and it is easy for most of us to reach those woods 

 and streams whence we may return laden with memories 

 of sweetness and beauty. 



All of us I trust have such memories, for no life is com- 

 plete without them. He has greatly lost who never saw the 

 harebells nodding from the cliffs, or the fleet of lily-pads 

 with their white chalices floating on the lake, or the great 

 moccasons standing regal in the peat-bog while gold-threads 

 and sundews glimmer humbly below. 



The productions of garden and greenhouse are indeed not 

 to be scorned ; however we may trace human ingenuity in 

 their doublings and markings yet 



Nature is made better by no mean 

 But nature makes that mean; so o'er that art 

 Which you say adds to nature, is an art 

 That nature makes. 



But after all we come closest to the plants when we 

 behold them in their self-chosen environment,— the cacti, 

 sprawling in cylinders or rolling in globes over arid wastes,' 

 the azaleas belting the swamps with blazing hedges, the 

 oxeye daisies and the buttercups swaying on the billows of 

 the meadow grass. It was over a self-sown countryside that 

 our Lord gazed when He said " Consider the lilies." 



It has been remarked that " this word of Jesus is almost 

 the only tender word about flowers in all the Bible." 

 Which is the more surprising because the flora of Pales- 

 tine is abundant and attractive. A tourist describes the 

 Plain of Esdraelon as "here, a flaming mass of red 

 anemones, there golden and yellow with myriad nodding 

 daisies; farther on a sheet of burning azure in the sun." 

 Yet throughout the Hebrew books we search in vain for 



