CULTIVATING WILD-FLOWERS. 357 



We know of more than one little cottage flower-patch, whose owner 

 has planted in it the cardinal-flower, where it has grown in such de- 

 cided prominence of beauty as to maintain a sort of pontifical preemi- 

 nence among the floral dignities of the parterre. This splendid flower, 

 with its racemes like scarlet rods, and the habit of the plant, so up- 

 right and graceful, with a sort of queenly bearing, and gorgeous mag- 

 nificence, very much outshone its gayer but straggling companion, the 

 gaudy scarlet salvia. We know a village blacksmith who thus made 

 this plant the spectacle in his flower-plot ; and it was amusing to see 

 persons, in their admiration, seeking to purchase plants from this little 

 garden, utterly ignorant of the fact that they could be had simply for 

 the going after in the contiguous meadows. As a wild-flower, they 

 had often seen it, but had never observed it. Forsooth, how few 

 obey the aesthetic command : " Consider the lilies of the field, how they 

 grow ! " 



And there is the common spreading dogbane, to which science has 

 given one of its terrible sesquipedalian names, to wit, Apocynum an- 

 droscemifolium. It is an engaging plant, for all that, with its open, 

 bell-shaped flowers. Its first cousin, the Indian hemp, though very un- 

 pretentious as to its flowers, has an upright habit, much more queenly 

 than the loose abandon of its beautiful flowered relation. Alas ! for its 

 reputation, this plant has fallen into bad hands, and become notorious 

 among the empirics of medicine. Speaking of the spreading dogbane, 

 a correspondent of the Torrey Botanical Club, quoting authorities, de- 

 scribes it as "one of the most charming of our native plants. The 

 beautiful clusters of rosy bells, with their pink bars, and delicate fra- 

 grance, claim for it a place in the garden, where, however, we do not 

 meet with it, but on open banks and by the side of roads or cultivated 

 fields. It is well approved, too, by the insect tribe, who are, in gen- 

 eral, much more appreciative judges of color and odor than we are. In 

 Europe, where it is not native, it is cultivated in gardens, and, accord- 

 ing to Lamarck, is called gobe-mouche fly-trap. If flies alight on this 

 plant, they are frequently entangled by the glutinous matter, and de- 

 stroyed. Hence, the plant has been called Ilerbe d la puce.'''' 



It has surprised me that so little has been done with our star- 

 worts, or native asters plants so prodigal of bloom during the late 

 summer, and almost the entire autumnal months. The number of spe- 

 cies is very great, and some are of exquisite beauty. Our favorite is 

 the Aster concolor. It abounds South, and comes as far North as the 

 Pines of New Jersey, where it attains perfection in delicacy of struct- 

 ure and prodigality and compactness of bloom. Indeed, this part of 

 New Jersey has seemed to us as the prodigal border-land, where the 

 Southern and the Northern floras terminate and commingle, or overlap 

 each other. Here Michaux and other great men have labored, and car- 

 ried away many novelties. In these regions, the Aster concolor 

 grows up like a simple wand, with its small leaves closely hugging the 



