Magenta to Pink 



lobes acute, and edges unequally incised. Prominent kidney- 

 shaped stipules. 



Preferred Habitat Moist meadows and prairies. 



Flowering Season June July. 



Distribution Western Pennsylvania to Michigan and Iowa, and 

 southward. 



A stately, beautiful native plant, seen to perfection where it 

 rears bright panicles of bloom above the ranker growth in the 

 low moist meadows of the Ohio Valley, When we find it in the 

 East, it has only recently escaped from man's gardens into Nature's. 

 Butterflies and bees pay grateful homage to this queen. Indeed, 

 butterflies appear to have a special fondness for pink, as bees 

 have for blue flowers. Cattle delight to chew the leaves, which, 

 when crushed, give out a fragrance like sweet birch. 



Wild Roses 



(Rosa) Rose family 



Just as many members of the lily tribe show a preference for 

 the rule of three in the arrangements of their floral parts, so the 

 wild roses cling to the quinary method of some primitive ances- 

 tor, a favorite one also with the buttercup and many of its kin, 

 the geraniums, mallows, and various others. Most of our fruit 

 trees and bushes are near relatives of the rose. Five petals and five 

 sepals, then, we always find on roses in a state of nature ; and 

 although the progressive gardener of to-day has nowhere shown 

 his skill more than in the development of a multitude of petals 

 irom stamens in the magnificent roses of fashionable society, the 

 most highly cultivated darling of the greenhouses quickly reverts 

 to the original wild type, setting his work of years at naught, 

 ii once it regain its natural liberties through neglect. 



To protect its foliage from being eaten by hungry cattle, the 

 rose goes armed into the battle of life with curved, sharp prickles, 

 not true thorns or modified branches, but merely surface appli- 

 ances which peel off with the bark. To destroy crawling pilferers 

 oi pollen, several species coat their calices, at least, with fine hairs or 

 sticky gum ; and to insure wide distribution of offspring, the seeds 

 are packed in the attractive, bright red calyx tube or hip, a favorite 

 lood of many birds, which drop them miles away. When shall 

 we ever learn that not even a hair has been added to or taken 

 irom a blossom without a lawful cause, and study it accordingly ? 

 Fragrance, abundant pollen, and bright-colored petals naturally 

 attract many insects ; but roses secrete no nectar. Some species 

 of bees, and a common beetle ( Trichius piger) for example, seem 

 tc depend upon certain wild roses exclusively for pollen to feed 

 themselves and their larvae. Bumblebees, to which roses are 



98 



