60 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



of the yellow cypripedium which was the result of twenty-five 

 years' search. As a boy, Mr. Redles had seen the flowers in 

 the vicinity of Germantown and when he later took up botaniz- 

 ing, he wanted a specimen of these flowers but they were 

 gone. Then began the hunt just brought to a successful term- 

 ination. All botanists and botanizers who see something in 

 botany besides a chance to change the names of plants or to 

 make new and doubtful species will appreciate and sympathize 

 with the spirit that urged on Mr. Redles' hunt. If it were the 

 mere plant he wanted, he could have obtained it for a quarter 

 from ony one of half-a-dozen nursery men; if it were merely 

 to see it growing wild, a hundred correspondents could have 

 told him where to get an armful of it; but the finding of the 

 plant for himself could only be accomplished by his own ef- 

 forts. And now that the plant is found and properly labeled, 

 the finder must have a certain regret that the quest is ended, 

 for it is the pursuit rather than the capture that attracts. In 

 one form or another we all have our elusive moccasin flowers. 

 The mere species does not matter so long as we have some ob- 

 ject to take us out of ourselves and into the free out-of-doors. 

 In his search for the moccasin into what distant retreats was 

 not the searcher carried ! Along many a path that real mocca- 

 sins have trod, through shady ravines, across breezy uplands, 

 in the dim woods, threading the tangled swamps ; the apparent 

 object, the moccasin flower; the real object, though perhaps 

 but dimly understood by the searcher, the delight that comes 

 from association with wild nature. 



* * * 



From articles in various botanical journals we judge that it 

 is still the fashion in some remote quarters to chronicle the 

 finding of wildflowers new to some particular political divis- 

 ion of our country. The individual interested in adding new 

 specimens to "our State flora" is engaged it seems to us in a 

 pursuit that has more of sentiment in it than of practical bo- 



