( >UR EASTERN CALL A LILY. 



CUT OFF THE FRONT OF ONE OF THESE ARUM SPATHES. 

 Turn it down and see the wonderful, short-stalked spadix entirely covered with perfect flowers 



crowded together in a mass of bloom. 



further addition to the already porten- 

 tious category of names and synonyms 

 any claim to originality is hereby once 

 and for all disclaimed. If anybody ob- 

 jects, not only to the objection but to 

 the imitation, let him speak now or for- 

 ever hold his peace!) 



But to return to my "calla." I find it 

 in our swamps and marshes in full bloom 

 in March and April. Three thousand 

 miles away, wild in the lowlands and 

 profuse in cultivated gardens, I find 

 growing, in the month of March, the 

 next door neighbor, the Richardia No. 4 

 Arum of Gray's "Field, Forest and Gar- 

 den Botany," the cultivated calla lily, 

 with its "pure white spathes" that bright- 

 ens the field of California, our eastern 

 homes and our churches at Easter. 



The plant whose praises I sing is No. 

 5 of the same botany, the Symplocarpus. 

 The two callas are twin sisters of the 

 Arum family. One might easily raise a 

 claim on the point of color that the pur- 

 plish-green spathe of the Symplocarpus 

 is not so remote, color-wise, from the 

 typical lily as is the plain white spathe of 

 the calla commonly so-called. 



Now, once and for all, say and have 

 done with it, all the bad things against the 

 plant that you can think of, and I will 

 take my turn at eulogizing it. Our r>ur- 

 plish-green Symplocarpus "calla lily" 



does smell rather "strong," a little focti- 

 dus, and later in the year its vigorous 

 leaves, a foot or two in length, may, if 

 the imagination has been excited by ac- 

 tive practice over the modern nature 

 story, suggest a recollection of the ple- 

 bian cabbage of the truck-patch. In 

 brief, it is a skunk-cabbage. But what 

 is in a name? Called a "calla lily," it 

 still smells as aromatic, the colors are 

 as strikingly variegated, the leaves as 

 luxuriant and the structure as interest- 

 ing. 



But come near the plant. Let not its 

 common name nor its uncommon per- 

 fume prevent you from making its other- 

 wise delightful acquaintance. 



In the first place, it is courageous and 

 encouraging. It strives so hard to drive 

 the snow away that it pushes through 

 the wedge like edges of the snow bank 

 that borders the cold pool. Even in 

 midwinter the spathes point an index fin- 

 ger toward the coming of spring. The 

 plant is so human like in perseverance 

 that it wins our sympathy. I wish I 

 could rename it Sympathycarpus felici- 

 tous — its sympathy makes us happy 



Said a naturalist to me in California, 

 "Don't you think it wonderful that our 

 calla lilies and other flowers bloom so 

 well out of doors?" 



"No," I replied. "If they didn't bloom 



