1912. 



SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF NATIVE PLANTS. 



LEAFLET NO. 23. 

 A Plea for the Conservation of Wild Flowers, 



BY GEORGE T. RUDDOCK. 



The newspapers of April 21, 1911, displayed an item on activities 

 of the teachers and children of the Oakland public schools in stripping 

 the hills and forests of Alameda County of wild flowers. The chil- 

 dren's department of the public library building was used to exhibit 

 the flowers taken, the public was invited to inspect, and, doubtless, 

 expected to approve and applaud. The publications detailed the 

 localities allotted to the several schools, and impressed the idea of 

 competition in quantities to be gathered. 



It may have been the purpose of the initiators of the outing to make 

 it educational. Then why the reserved space for exhibition? A 

 few specimens of each kind collected in the fields and properly pre- 

 sented by the teacher would have been effective. . . . 



Such an outing always resolves itself into competitive vandalism, 

 without design perhaps, but with that inevitable result. Field flowers 

 cautiously plucked may serve for exhibition or decorative purposes; 

 but few persons are temperate enough in their desires, or sufficiently 

 thoughtful to pick them with the best effect and least violence to the 

 fields. 



The aesthetic duty of wild flowers is to adorn the fields: their 

 especial mission is to produce seed to perpetuate the species and, 

 coincidentally, to furnish food for other life forms. To destroy the 

 seeding capacity is to end the life history of the plant in the locality. 

 Wild flowers propagate mostly by seed. In order to insure reproduc- 

 tion, they bear these in large quantities, but with a low percentage of 

 germination. These few fertile seeds must escape destruction by fire, 

 birds, rodents, insects, and grazing animals before new plants can be 



