PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 143 



flower and goldenrod; some of these have so nearly become extinct, that 

 every bit of unbroken prairie is sacred ground. 



A large part of the data gathered has been in the vicinity of Osage, but 

 I have always made it a point to study every locality, and with this con- 

 clusion, that Osage township is typical of the rest of the county. Here 

 we have river, creek, pasture, waste ground, bluffs, a very little low 

 ground, sandy soil and bayous, each clothed with its own typical verdure. 



Some of the localities given after the names of the specimens found, 

 are purely local and therefore need a word of explanation. 



The "Old Farm" is known to geologists as the Gable Farm in Calvin's 

 Geology of Mitchell County. Two years of my childhood were spent here, 

 and I shall never forget the delicate, fragrant beauty of the banks of 

 Sugar Creek in the springtime when they were covered with the blue, 

 pink, and purple tinted hepaticas, our mayflower. Here, too, grew Adam 

 and Eve in conjugal bliss, the bloodroot, spring beauty, blue phlox and 

 wild geranium each in its time and place. The road to school for a 

 quarter of a mile lay through dense woods, now long since cut down, and 

 sister and I dreamed dreams, and lived wonderful stories, as our weary 

 feet plodded home from school. The dark green of the oaks, the trailing 

 virgin's bower, and wild grape, or the crimson shades of the maples in 

 autumn, made an artist of one little girl and a naturalist of the other. 



Pierce's bridge is one of my favorite haunts, and has revealed many 

 secrets hid in Mother Nature's story book. There I found the rare grey 

 birch fifty of them; the fragile cliff brake growing from a crack in the 

 limestone bluff; and here too I put three blind baby woodchucks to sleep 

 one Memorial Day tout that is another story. 



The Cedar river, or Wa-shood Ne-shun-a-ga-tah, Big Timber river, as 

 the Winnebagoes once called it, makes a big curve in Osage township, 

 circling about Osage with a radius of two miles from west to south. 

 Pierce's bridge is south of Osage; the Middle bridge is southwest, and 

 two miles west of Osage on Main street is another bridge. The most be- 

 wildering experience that ever came to me, was on the day I found the 

 colony of deep blue-purple Chelone glabra or turtle head near the Mid- 

 dle bridge. They stood all of five feet tall in the brink of the river, close 

 to a bubbling spring. Every year they come true as to color. This same 

 mutant has been found near Pierce's bridge by Mrs. Walter Wheeler, of 

 Osage. 



The Old Lime Kiln road leads out of Osage southwest to the Middle 

 bridge and is bordered on one side by vertical bluffs, an on the other side 

 for some distance by Sugar Creek. 



Spring Park is a tract of about forty acres of land owned by an. as- 

 sociation for a picnic and camping site. Here is found a wonderful spring 

 flowing the year round. From it flows a little brook filled with water- 

 cress, blue iris, yellow marsh marigolds, and bordered by a large colony 

 of the sensitive fern. 



A forest expert on strolling through these grounds one day counted 

 oighty-one varieties of trees. Millions of the supposedly rare muscatel 

 grow here, and on a bank overlooking the spring are found the showy 

 orchis; while down in a moist spot have been found the Indian pipe or 

 corpse plant. 



