160 FAMILIAR FLOWERS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 



were beautiful to my boyish eyes, aud now the mag- 

 niiicent D. cornucojna, which is but a recent highly 

 cultivated variety of the same flower, is greatly sought 

 after by those who wish to ornament their gardens. 

 The flower has a long, tubular tive-pointed corolla set 

 in a long, light-green calyx. It blooms in early sum- 

 mer, and is a familiar object in open lots around New 

 York and the cities of northern New Jersey. I never 

 found it in New Hampshire. 



The spreading dogbane is so corn- 

 Spreading 



Dogbane. nion all over the country in thickets 



Apocynum and woody dells that one can not fail 



androsamifolium. r. t • • i i rr , e 



to find it witliout tlie eftort oi a reg- 

 ular search. It is easy to identify the small, loose 

 clusters of tiny, pinky-white, bell-shaped flowers 

 which resemble lilies-of-the-valley, and grow on 

 a bush that bears smallish, oval, dull, light-green 

 leaves ; on breaking off a stem it exudes a sticky 

 milk-white juice, as the milkweed does. The flowers 

 are quite as beautiful as many small garden favorites, 

 and in my estimation they are individually more at- 

 tractive by reason of their delicious dainty pink flush 

 than the lily-of-the-valley. This seems flat heresy, 

 but in defense of the preference for a common wild 

 flower I would venture to predict that if some horti- 

 culturist should succeed in producing a lily-of-the- 

 valley with the dainty pink coloring of the dogbane, 



