192 PEP ACTON 



look in vain for it elsewhere. It does not go in 

 herds like the commoner plants, but affects privacy 

 and solitude. When I come upon it in my walks, 

 I seem to be intruding upon some very private and 

 exclusive company. The large yellow cypripedium 

 has a peculiar, heavy, oily odor. 



In like manner one learns where to look for arbu- 

 tus, for pipsissewa, for the early orchis; they have 

 their particular haunts, and their surroundings are 

 nearly always the same. The yellow pond-lily is 

 found in every sluggish stream and pond, but 

 Nymphcea odorata requires a nicer adjustment of 

 conditions, and consequently is more restricted in 

 its range. If the mullein were fragrant, or toad- 

 flax, or the daisy, or blue-weed, or goldenrod, they 

 would doubtless be far less troublesome to the agri- 

 culturist. There are, of course, exceptions to the 

 rule I have here indicated, but it holds in most 

 cases. Genius is a specialty: it does not grow in 

 every soil; it skips the many and touches the few; 

 and the gift of perfume to a flower is a special grace 

 like genius or like beauty, and never becomes com- 

 mon or cheap. 



"Do honey and fragrance always go together in 

 the flowers 1 " Not uniformly. Of the list of fra- 

 grant wild flowers I have given, the only ones that 

 the bees procure nectar from, so far as I have ob- 

 served, are arbutus, dicentra, sugar maple, locust, 

 and linden. Non-fragrant flowers that yield honey 

 are those of the raspberry, clematis, sumac, white 

 oak, bugloss, ailanthus, goldenrod, aster, fleabane. 



