AMONG THE WILD FLOWERS 13 



Eobinson's " Wild Garden," already alluded to, he 

 would gather the seeds of these plants and sow 

 them in the marshes and along the sluggish inland 

 streams, till the banks of all our rivers were gay 

 with these brilliant exotics. 



Among our native plants, the one that takes 

 broad marshes to itself and presents vast sheets of 

 color is the marsh milkweed, far less brilliant than 

 the loosestrife or the mallow, still a missionary in 

 the wilderness, lighting up many waste places with 

 its humbler tints of purple. 



One sometimes seems to discover a familiar wild 

 flower anew by coming upon it in some peculiar and 

 striking situation. Our columbine is at all times 

 and in all places one of the most exquisitely beauti- 

 ful of flowers; yet one spring day, when I saw it 

 growing out of a small seam on the face of a great 

 lichen-covered wall of rock, where no soil or mould 

 was visible, a jet of foliage and color shooting 

 out of a black line on the face of a perpendicular 

 mountain wall and rising up like a tiny fountain, 

 its drops turning to flame- colored jewels that hung 

 and danced in the air against the gray rocky sur- 

 face, its beauty became something magical and 

 audacious. On little narrow shelves in the rocky 

 wall the corydalis was blooming, and among the 

 loose bowlders at its base the blood-root shone con- 

 spicuous, suggesting snow rather than anything more 

 sanguine. 



Certain flowers one makes special expeditions for 

 every season. They are limited in their ranges, 



