200 THE PLANT WORLD 



The Wild Flower Preservation Society 



of America. 



Mrs. N. Iv. Britton, Secretary of the Society, has gone to Nassau, 

 in the Bahamas, and requests that members address correspondence re- 

 quiring immediate attention to Dr. C. E. Waters, Johns Hopkins 

 University, Baltimore, Maryland. She will return about the end of Sep- 

 tember. 



Plans are on foot for an elaborate meeting of the Society and its 

 friends in connection with the gathering of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science at Philadelphia next December. Suggestions 

 as to the program will be welcomed from any one interested. 



VACATION NOTES. 



By Pauline Kaufman. 



So MUCH has been said concerning the destruction of the neighboring 

 wild flowers by the summer colony in the country that I am continually 

 asking myself why my experience in that direction should be, as I have 

 been told, unique. A part of several vacations spent in Central Valley, 

 N. Y., resulted, the first year, in the finding of the rare rue spleenwort 

 fern, so situated in a park, open to the public, that almost every visitor 

 must pass it. Each succeeding year I approached in fear and trembling to 

 find, to my surprise and gratification, that the treasure remained untouched. 



The walking-fern is certainly attractive, and of this there was no lack ; 

 some of the rocks being fairly carpeted. Here, too, one saw no evidence 

 of molestation. Wild flowers abounded in great variety. The rocky 

 fields were red with columbine. Immense leaves of hepatica and blood- 

 root gave proof of the extraordinary beauty of the blossoms now passed. 

 Various orchids appeared in their season. Occasionally we would meet 

 three or four children with a few flowers. So far as we could see, this 

 was the extent of the plundering. In the eyes of the owner of this tract 

 of land the maidenhair fern was of paramount value, yet we never saw 

 that it appreciably decreased. May not the absence of guardians and of 

 the usual " Do not " have done more to protect than to tempt. This 

 reminds me of the experience of an acquaintance who, finding a flower 

 rare in his locality, put a little note on a nearby tree, begging for its 

 preservation. On his second visit there was no trace of the flower, but 

 a note replacing his, stating that there were others within a few miles. 



Perhaps the fact that our host had a fine flower garden, from which 

 the table was daily decorated, contributed to the peaceful blossoming of 



