WEW YORK. 



BOTANICAL 



PREFACE 



Surely a foreword of explanation is called for from one who 

 has the temerity to offer a surfeited public still another book on 

 wild flowers. Inasmuch as science has proved that almost every 

 blossom in the world is everything it is because of its necessity to 

 attract insect friends or to repel its foes— its form, mechanism, 

 color, markings, odor, time of opening and closing, and its season 

 of blooming being the result of natural selection by that special 

 insect upon which each depends more or less absolutely for help 

 in perpetuating its species— it seems fully time that the vitally im- 

 portant and interesting relationship existing between our common 

 wild flowers and their winged benefactors should be presented in 

 a popular book. 



Is it enough to know merely the name of the flower you meet 



in the meadow? The blossom has an inner meaning, hopes 



and fears that inspire its brief existence, a scheme of salvation for 



its species in the struggle for survival that it has been slowly per- 



-iecting with some insect's help through the ages. It is not a pas- 



- ^ive thing to be admired by human eyes, nor does it waste its 



«1 Sweetness on the desert air. It is a sentient being, impelled to act 



%b intelligently through the same strong desires that animate us, and 



•==^ endowed with certain powers differing only in degree, but not 



I ' in kind, from those of the animal creation. Desire ever creates 



<. form. 



Do you doubt it } Then study the mechanism of one of our 



'•*- common orchids or milkweeds that are adjusted with such mar- 



-- vellous delicacv to the length of a bee's tongue or of a butterfly's 



leg ; learn why so many flowers have sticky calices or protective 



^ hairs; why the skunk cabbage, purple trillium, and carrion flower 



■ emit a fetid odor while other flowers, especially the white or pale 



yellow night bloomers, charm with their delicious breath ; see if 



'— you cannot discover why the immigrant daisy already whitens our 



fields with descendants as numerous as the sands of the seashore, 



JQ whereas you may tramp a whole dav without finding a single 



O^ native ladies' slipper. What of the sundew that not only catches 



rr insects, but secretes gastric juice to digest them .? What of the 



bladderwort, in whose inflated traps tiny crustaceans are impris- 



*~ oned, or the pitcher-plant, that makes soup of its guests ? Why 



2^ are gnats and flies seen about certain flowers, bees, butterflies. 



