WILD, OR NATIVE FLOWERS. 77 



Our Floral Calendar might be likened to four stages of life. The 

 tender early flowers of Spring to innocent childhood. The gay 

 blossoms of May and June with all their fruitful promises, to advancing 

 youth. The ripening fruit of Summer's prime, to mature manhood in its 

 strength and perfection ; while the white flowers and hoary leaves of 

 our Pearly Everlastings and drooping Grasses are not inapt emblems of 

 old age, bending earthward yet not destroyed, for they have winged 

 seeds that rise and float upwards and heavenwards, and we shall again 

 behold them in renewed youth and beauty. 



Eari.y-flowerinc; Everlastinc; — Antennaria dioica, (Gaertn.) 



Our earliest Everlasting is a pretty, low, creeping plant, not 

 exceeding six inches in height, with small round clustered heads of 

 downy whiteness, with dark brown anthers, which resemble the antennje 

 of some small insect, whence the generic name AHtetinaria is taken. 

 The leaves of the plant are white beneath and slightly cottony on the 

 outer surface, becoming darker green dunng the summer. The root- 

 stock is spreading, the leaves numerous, roundish-spatulate. The whole 

 plant has a hoary appearance when it first springs up. 



This modest, innocent-looking little flower, peeps forth in Aprils 

 and carpets the dry, gravelly hills with its downy blossoms and soft, 

 silken leaves, sharing the newly uncovered earth with the Blue Violet 

 ( Viola ciiaiilata), and early pale yellow Crowfoot, Rock Saxifrage and 

 Barren ^^'ild Strawberry ( IValdstei/iia fi'agarioides, (Tratt), which is then 

 beginning to put forth its new foliage and yellow flowers, that have been 

 kindly sheltered by the persistent leaves of the former year, now red 

 and bronzed by the frosts of early Spring. Our pretty Canadian 

 Everlasting bears some family resemblance to the far-famed "Edelweiss" 

 of the High iMps {Leoiitopodium alpinum). As in that flower, the 

 clustered heads are set round the centre of the disc, like a little infant 

 family surrounding the careful mother. 



In the singular Alpine species, the whole plant, from root-leaves to 

 stem and involucre, is thickly clothed with snow-white down, as if to 

 keep it warmly defended from the bitter mountain blasts and whirling 

 showers of snow and hail. Thus does Creative Love shield and clothe 

 the flowers of the field : His tender care is over all His works. 



Scarcely has our little Everlasting raised its soft cottony head above 

 the short turf when another species appears, as if to rival its tiny brother. 



Plantain-leaved Everlasting — Antennaria plantaginifoUa, (R. Br.) 



This plant varies in height from six inches to eight or nine. The 

 woolly stem is clothed with narrow, leafy bracts ; the root-leaves are 



