118 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



should send in their names as soon as convenient. Reports will 

 not be compulsory but we hope to have full reports each 

 quarter. The first subject will be announced in the next 

 number. 



* * * 



A joint resolution was recently introduced in Congress for 

 the purpose of making the mountain laurel {Kalmia latifolia) 

 the national flower, and the unthinking public has gone in for it 

 with a whoop. A national flower, however, cannot be made 

 by fiat. We may legislate till the cows come home, we may 

 organize societies to' advocate the merits of our favorite flower, 

 we may write letters to the papers and we may get children and 

 other childlike individuals to select a national flower by vote, 

 but until some plant looms large enough in our national history 

 to merit the title, we shall have no national flower that the title 

 really fits. In every community there are certain individuals 

 bent on filling long felt wants even if they have to first create 

 the aforesaid wants. It seems to be some individual or group 

 of individuals of this kind who are worried about the national 

 and State flowers. The sentimentalist thinks how lovely it 

 would be if his State and nation had a distinguishing flower, 

 such as certain countries of the Old World have, and im- 

 mediately rushes off to the legislature to get the error corrected. 

 He never stops to think that a national flower must be signifi- 

 cant to be acceptable. The State flowers of other countries are 

 intimately connected with historical events, and any real 

 national flower for the United States will have the same origin. 

 It is amusing, therefore, to see legislatures composed of men 

 too woefully lacking in plant-lore to know a fern from a carrot, 

 adopting as State flowers, plants not native to the State, or 

 even to the United States. As for the mountain laurel, its re- 

 stricted habitat, its short season of bloom, the difficulty of 

 making it grow at all in most of the States, to say nothing of 

 its habit of crouching in the shelter of stronger species, makes 



