WAYSIDE FLOWERS. 



BY DR. W. W. BAILEY. 



ANY country may be known by its wayside flowers. The 

 hedges and copses along the highways and paths of Eng- 

 land show a peculiar flora. Those of Germany, France, Italy 

 or Spain are again distinctive. Quite different are these as 

 a rule from ours, although, as the home of the immigrant from 

 all lands, one finds here a cosmopolitan collection. This is 

 true, however, only near the cities ; in the country American 

 plants predominate. 



British flowers have become a sacred part of English lit- 

 erature. From Chancer and the older bards, down to Mathew 

 Arnold and Tennyson, the poets have revelled in them. Who 

 does not know cowslips, oxlips, primroses, fox-gloves, cuckoo- 

 pint and Canterbury-bells ; daisy and dandelion, thyme, Mar- 



joran and 



"All the idle needs that grow 



In life's sustaining fields?" 



Our own wild flowers too have been chronicled in sweet verse 

 by Longfellow, Bryant, Lowell, Emerson, Thoreau, Whittier, 

 and Holmes. 



Of course the kind of flowers found by the highway will 

 vary with the season. In June we notice the broad cymes 

 of elder, like some rich and mellow point lace, creamy with 

 age. Reflected in the still water it is very lovely. Wayside 

 meadows are studded with Rudbeckias — "black-eyed Susans," 

 very splendid. Another field may be white with oxeyes, a 

 billowy sea of foam. In low moist places one observes the 

 dainty Pogonia, an orchid pink in hue and fragrant of violets. 

 Do not mistake it for Arethusa, so like yet different. The 

 latter is odorless and of deeper color ; leafless too, while 

 Pogonia has one leaf half-way of the stem. Calopogon, an- 

 other orchid, is near it, peculiar for its erect crested lip. 

 Usually it bears several magenta colored flowers. This is a 

 tint esteemed by nature, and, as a rule, abhorred by man. 



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