Magenta to Pink 



mind with despair. To him there is no glory in the scarlet of the 

 poppy comparable with the glitter of a silver dollar; no charm in 

 the heavenly blue of the corn-flower, that likewise preys upon the 

 fertility of his soil ; the vivid flecks of color with which the cockle 

 lights up his fields mean only loss of productiveness in the earth 

 that would yield him greater profit without them. Moreover, 

 seeds of this so-called weed not only darken his wheat when they 

 are threshed out together, but are positively injurious if swallowed 

 in any quantity. Emerson said every plant is called a weed until 

 its usefulness is discovered. Linnaeus called this flower Agro- 

 stemma = the crown-of-the-field. Agriculturalists never realize 

 that beauty is in itself a sufficient plea for respected existence. 

 Not a few of the cockle's relatives adorn men's gardens. 



Wild Pink or Catchfly 



(Silene Caroliniana) Pink family 

 (S. Pennsylvania of Gray) 



Flowers — Rose pink, deep or very pale ; about i inch broad, on slen- 

 der footstalks, in terminal clusters. Calyx tubular, s-toothed, 

 much enlarged in fruit, sticky ; 5 petals with claws enclosed 

 in calyx, wedged-shaped above, slightly notched. Stamens 

 10 ; pistil with 3 styles. Stem: 4 to 10 in. high, hairy, sticky 

 above, growing in tufts. Leaves: Basal ones spatulate ; 2 or 

 3 pairs of lance-shaped, smaller leaves seated on stem. 



Preferred Habitat — Dry, gravelly, sandy, or rocky soil. 



Flowering Season — A pril — J u n e . 



Distribution — New England, south to Georgia, westward to Ken- 

 tucky. 



Fresh, dainty, and innocent-looking as Spring herself are 

 these bright flowers. Alas, for the tiny creatures that try to climb 

 up the rosy tufts to pilfer nectar, they and their relatives are not 

 so innocent as they appear ! While the little crawlers are almost 

 within reach of the cup of sweets, their feet are gummed to the 

 viscid matter that coats it, and here their struggles end as flies' do 

 on sticky fly-paper, or birds' on limed twigs. A naturalist counted 

 sixty-two little corpses on the sticky stem of a single pink. All 

 this tragedy to protect a little nectar for the butterflies which, in 

 sipping it, transfer the pollen from one flower to another, and so 

 help them to produce the most beautiful and robust offspring. 



The pink, which has two sets of stamens of five each, elevates 

 first one set, then the other, for economy's sake and to run less 

 risk of failure to get its pollen transferred in case of rain when its 

 friends are not flying. After all the golden dust has been shed, 

 however, up come the three recurved styles from the depth of the 



92 



