THE rRESERVATlON OF ^\ILD FLOWERS. 255 



underground storehouses. The Solomon's seal, ginseng, anemone, 

 violet, bellwort, irillium and iris liavo underground rootstocks which 

 provide energy for rapid development in the spring. The adder's 

 tongue and other lilies, the claytonia or spring beaut}^, and the jack- 

 in-the-pulpit have bulbs or corms deep down in the ground which 

 serve as storehouses for plant food. They send up in the spring a few 

 comparatively large leaves and a single scape of flowers which can be 

 picked without doing much damage to the plant itself. Tlie jack-in- 

 the-pulpit, however, grows in moist soil and is easily uprooted. The 

 mayflower (epigsea), and the twin-flower (linntea) both have slender, 

 rather woody creeping rootstocks which are frequently torn up when 

 the blossoms are broken off rather than cut off. 



The late blooming perennials suffer less by picking than those 

 plants which blossom earlier, for their vegetative work for the season 

 is nearly completed when they become attractive and subject to injury. 

 The woody perennials, shrubs and trees, form buds in the axils of 

 their leaves and at tijis of branches. The buds increase in size during 

 the summer and the next spring become swollen as the sap from the 

 stem rises in them. Then they burst open and develop into new 

 branches bearing leaves and flowers. If the twigs are broken off the 

 growth of several years and also the buds, promises of new branches, 

 are destroyed. The rhododendron, magnolia, mountain laurel, flower- 

 ing dogwood and other attractive early blooming shrubs suffer in this 

 way. The gathering of mountain laurel for winter decorations de- 

 stroys quantities of buds which would have developed into beautiful 

 clusters of blossoms in the early summer. Careful cutting or pruning 

 of a shrub or tree is nevertheless advantageous to it, checking an over 

 exertion on the part of the plant, which is necessary to flower produc- 

 tion, and thereby strengthening the parts which remain. 



Annuals are herbaceous plants which live but one year, dying after 

 the maturing of the seed. Their only means of perpetuating their 

 race is through the production of seed. Wholesale plucking of their 

 blossoms will, therefore, lead to their extermination. The fringed 

 gentian, and the pink sabbatia are among these plants. They are very 

 difficult to transplant and local in distribution. The painted cup, 

 known in the west by the better name of painter's brush, is also an 

 annual, and exhibits a sign of weakness in parasiticism of its roots. 

 These plants call for special protection. Careful cutting of few blos- 

 soms from the portions of a plant where they are thickest is often a 

 benefit to the flowers which remain, giving them additional energy for 

 the production of fruit which is more exhausting to the plant than 

 production of flowers. 



