THE PLANT WORLD 123 



The Wild Flower Preservation Society 



of America. 



The following essay, written by Miss Mary Perle Anderson, was 

 awarded the first prize of twenty-five dollars in the Stokes fund compe- 

 tition of 1904, New York Botanical Garden. It is reprinted in full from 

 Wv^ Journal oi that Institution. 



THE PROTECTION OF OUR NATIVE PLANTS.* 

 By Mary Perle Anderson. 



For ages Nature worked upon a great bare continent, and slowly, so 

 slowly that a passing century saw no change, she won her victory. Great 

 forests softened the outlines of mountains ; vast reaches of waving grass 

 made beautiful the monotony of plains, and everywhere flowers were scat- 

 tered with lavish hand. She hid them in the deepest glades of the forest 

 and sowed them broadcast on the meadows ; she begirt the lakes, and 

 bordered the streams, and hung the hillsides with their beauty. 



And the making of a single flovv^er ! They were begun far back in 

 the distant centuries, and some are not done yet ; indeed, perhaps none 

 of them are. It would seem as if in color and structure and form Nature 

 had tried every possible combination, but the experiments are going on 

 to-day with undiminished energy, and with the choicest results of the 

 ages. For many were discarded long ago, some for reasons known to 

 us, and more for those known only to herself. 



While it is true that the resources of Nature are unlimited, still she 

 may be sadly hampered ; the results of the ages may be lost and the on- 

 ward movement slackened. It took countless centuries to make this con- 

 tinent the land that Columbus found it, and in four hundred years — four 

 trifling centuries — what havoc has been wrought ? The tide of destruction 

 rises higher with each succeeding year. To an alarming extent it has 

 swept over the forests, and wherever it passes, the primeval vegetation is 

 known no more. 



In many localities the wild flowers that bloomed in the familiar places 

 of our childhood have disappeared from their haunts. The woodland 

 blossoms went with the woodland ; the violets and cowslips and Jack-in- 

 the-pulpits died out soon after the wet corner of the meadow was drained ; 



♦Awarded the first prize of twenty-five dollars, competition of iqo4, from the Caroline and Olivia 

 Phelps-Stokes Fund for the Preservation of Native Plants. Reprinted from ihe. Journal of the New 

 York Botanical Garden. 



