Sights and Sounds of the Northwoods 



BY D. LANGE 



Copyright, 1920, By D. Lange. 



(Continued from January) 

 THE WILD FLOWERS OF THE TRAIL 



Many flowers are actually travellers on the great 

 fur trails. You will find them on and near the old 

 Hudson Bay trails. To this class belong the tall gold- 

 en buttercup, the white-and-yellow daisy and the 

 Scotch thistle, better known as the Canada thistle. 



On what ship or cargo the seeds of these immigrants 

 first came over, no record tells. But from the St. 

 Lawrence all the way along the old Pur Trails grow 

 the daisies, buttercups, thistles and dandelions of Eng- 

 land and Scotland. 



And what a vigorous life these children of a foreign 

 dime lead in their new soil! Nowhere in Europe will 

 yon find meadows as golden as you may see on the 

 red clay flats at the head of Lake Superior. 



Somehow these Old World flowers seem to fit well 

 into onr landscape. Take the case of the daisy for 

 instance. You will not find it in the forest, where the 

 little white forest flowers greet you on trails and 

 sunny patches, but along the century-old Hudson Bay 

 trail, they display their golden disks and snowwhite 

 rays in cheering splendor. Where the white man's 

 steamroad has touched the old trail, the daisy has at 

 once started to travel along this great higlrvvay of all 

 immigrant weeds and flowers. 



Strange to say, this Old England daisy seems to 

 have a special preference for Indian camping grounds. 



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