WILD FLOWERS THAT BOYS AND GIRLS SHOULD KNOW 



477 



lcee]js (III lildciniing all suniiner into the early autumn ; this is the 

 Field or Corn Miistard (Fig. 7), and its yellow lF)\\('r> are so strik- 

 ing that, with the aid of the picture here given, yuu can hardh mala 

 a mistake aliont it. Near the city it ma\- be seen growing on the 

 waste heaps or in unoccu]jied lots. Birds are very fond of its pale, 

 peppery seeds as winter comes on ; this is especially true of tame 

 liigeons, and they will eat tpiantities of them if the\' get the chance. 

 Sometime, when you get along a little further in your studies, you 

 must read up about the Carrion l-'lower shown in b'igure 8. It smells 

 just like a piece of meat that has been kept too long in a warm ]ilace. 

 This is for a very im]:iortant purpose to the flower, and it is quite as 

 important that in the fall its leaves should turn a brilliant red and 

 green, for these colors attract many small birds on their way south- 

 ward ; as the seeds in the berries are then ripe, the birds come after 

 them, and help scatter them, in one way or another, far and wide. The 

 Carrion Flower is but another species of the Smilax or Catbrier, and 

 every boy who goes into the woods knows what the latlirier or (ireen- 



brier is, with its 

 smooth, glossy, and 

 bright; green leaves. 

 < ^ur wnld Pink 

 Azalea ( Fi,g 9), 

 which we all know- 

 so well, and love 

 as one of the most 

 beautiful of Amer- 

 ica's flowers, is the 

 shrub from which 

 the fine azaleas we 

 see in the flower- 

 stores came. About 

 two hundred years 

 ago. the Belgian 

 florists received the 

 wild one from the 

 colonists here, and 

 by cross - breeding 

 produced the su- 

 |ierli plant that you 

 now see ornament- 

 ing our homes al- 

 iiKjst everywhere. 

 Unhappy Belgium! 

 She is not thinking 

 much about azaleas 

 now . with her love- 

 1\' lands all devas- 

 tated and ruined. 

 You niu>t re- 

 member that many 

 flowers have, as the years liavi.' gone by, escaped from gardens, and are 

 now found growing wild in all sorts of ]ilaces. 'I'his is the case with a 

 very large number of our eastern wild flowers, and it is true of the 

 l)a\- Lily shown in Figure 10. Through one way or another, a whole 

 lot of our wild flowers have spread from Eurojie. and not a few from 

 .\sia and .Africa. Naturall}-, as you w-ill know from your geography, 

 we find these first in eastern United States, but then, too, many of them 

 have already spread far toward our Western States. Ages ago, when 

 ])eoiile were so suyierstitious- — and only too many are so yet — it was 



COLORED LIKE LEMONS 



l-|ti. IJ. — That is a Black Swallr.w-tail Butterfly which has just 

 lit on the side (if the bunch of huils of the Evening Primrose. 

 .Note the one in full flower down to the riRht. Those flowers 

 are bright leniun yellow and very handsome. 



THIS HAS M.\XY NAMES 



I'-ic. 11. — Some plants have very beautiful leaves, 

 and this is one of them. Like most of its kind, it 

 has a whole lot of names, as the Rattlesnake-weed. 

 Early or Vein-leaf Hawkweed, Snake Plantain, and 

 so on. 



Fig. 



HERE IS A QUESTION 

 13- — Why they call these Common Burdock 



burrs "Beggar's Buttons" it is hard to tell; but that 

 is one of their names — surely they would make very 

 sticky old buttons. 



