84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



PRAIRIE-FLOWERS OF EARLY SPRING. 



By BYRON D. HALSTED, Sc. D., 



TROFESSOR OF BOTANY, IOWA AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



BOTANY has so changed, broadened, and deepened, within the 

 past twenty years, that it may seem like retrogression to talk of 

 flowers. The average botanist of to-day has gone so far beyond mere 

 blossoms, as such, in his study of minute anatomy or in his experi- 

 ments upon vegetable physiology, that he sometimes almost forgets 

 there are such things as sepals and petals. He must confine himself 

 to a single cell, or at most a group of cells ; a tissue, or possibly a 

 tissue system, or else his associates will speak of him as being so broad 

 that he must be shallow. The division of labor, in fact, has gone so 

 far that one person studies pollen for a lifetime, while another counts 

 that day lost in which he does not gain some new fact upon the end- 

 less subject of chlorophyl. There are hundreds of noted botanists 

 who pay no attention to flowering plants except as they are the hosts 

 of, and subject to destructive inroads from, the almost countless spe- 

 cies of cryptogamic plants belonging to the rusts, smuts, blights, 

 mildews, and molds. 



It therefore requires much courage in this age of advanced botani- 

 cal thought to attempt to write upon a theme that is so broad as the 

 one selected. "Spring floAvers" bears the marks of wear, especially 

 in the hands of those who can do almost anything better than make 

 rhymes. The practical eye of the penetrating student of plant-life 

 has gone beyond the beauty in flowers, and finds a golden thread of 

 adaptation which the average "spring poet" has never dreamed of, 

 even in his highest flights after the soul of things. However, for the 

 genuine poets be it said that it was reserved for the immortal Goethe 

 to first comprehend the true morphology of seemingly so simple a 

 structure as a flower. 



The season of flowers opened unusually early this year how much 

 more so than the average can only be told after observations have been 

 taken over a series of years. Ten years from now it is hoped that the 

 record will be so complete that, with watch in hand, the hour may be 

 given when a certain flower may be expected. There is doubtless a 

 floral clock for the year as there is one for the twenty-four hours of a 

 single day. Perhaps there has been a great Phyto-convention held 

 somewhere, and a majority, if not all, of the choice bloomers were in 

 attendance. Each was assigned its place in the calendar, and if the 

 petals do not unfold and fade away with the regularity of the un- 

 erring time-piece, it is no fault of the plant. Upon the surround- 

 ing circumstances, and not upon the plant, must rest any blame for 

 irregularity. To any one who has made a careful inspection of the 



