44 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



"•In looking over tlie lists offered by dealers in choice trees, slirubs, and 

 plants, I am often struck by the high estimation in which they hold many 

 of those which here thrive in their native soil, and it is to be regretted that 

 such are not always prized by us as they merit. 



"The catalogue of a prominent European dealer, while noting many 

 species growing in California and the far west, also gives space and praise 

 to some thirty species indigenous to this country; while to indicate the 

 prices affixed to them I will only mention that forty cents is asked for a 

 Mandrake root, and thirty cents for a plant of Marsh Marigold, here often 

 called Cowslip. 



"Our Adder-tongues are described as of exquisite beauty, either for 

 flowers or foliage, pretty in pots, and considered Ijy orchid growers to sur- 

 pass the foliage of their favorite and costly Cyprvpediums. 



" That it is not only those who sell, but also those who buy, who appre- 

 ciate our native flora, I have personal knowledge, in having somewhat aided 

 an English family in procuring a large number of our American plants, 

 with w^hich they expected to increase the beauty and interest of their 

 country seat. 



"A London newspaper, of recent date, noted the arrival in England of 

 an American gentleman, having in his care American trees and shrubs, 

 which were to be introduced on the estates of the Dukes of Westminster, 

 Portland, Sutherland, and Devonshire. 



"It is pleasant to add that some of those same noblemen so appreciate 

 our bobolinks and orioles, that pairs of these birds were also carefully 

 transported across the ocean, and, ere this, have been liberated on the 

 grounds where their floral compatriots are established. 



"In the list of plants ofl^ered by a firm in this country, which issues one 

 of the most artistically beautiful catalogues of the present time, one can 

 enumerate seven species of flowering trees or shrubs, ten of ferns, and 

 thirty-six of herbaceous plants that are growing almost at our doors. 



"Is it because they are as free as air to us that we withhold the meed of 

 admiration ? 



"In the list is the Asclepias tuherosa, which, as seen by one who is away 

 from its native profusion, is ' brilliant orange red, is one of the showiest of 

 our autumnal flowers, and deserves extensive cultivation. ' Do you not fear 

 that to some of us, who know it as Pleurisy Root, and whose accustomed 

 eyes see it blooming here, there, and nearly everywhere, it is 'only a weed?' 



"The Cypripediwm spectahile, of which it is said, of all the known ter- 

 restrial orchids, there is none to equal this glorious plant, is, in plain Eng- 

 lish, the Lady's Slipper of our swamps ; but ought it therefore to lose any 

 of its charms? 



" And in the list are other beauties still, from A, with its Asters and 

 Aquilegias to as near the end of the alphabet as U, where the inconspicuous 

 but graceful Bellwort is invested with all the dignity appertaining to the 

 sonorous title of Uvidaria grandiflora. 



"The prices affixed to Red-buds of a dollar each, and shrub Cinque- 

 foils at fifty cents, with Cone-fiowers at twenty-five cents, are, perhaps, 

 material evidence of others' admiration. 



"If you are a genuine lover of the wild flowers, you will read compliment- 

 ary descriptions of them with much pleasure, and though acknowledging 

 the charm of novelty, will believe that ?Y can easily be found among the 

 plants of a county, wdiere even the commonest call forth encomiums from 

 impartial judges. 



