146 WOKCESTEK COUNTY HOETICULTUKAL SOCIETY. [1892. 



than a thousand species are known to grow in this neighborhood, 

 his surprise approaches very near to astonishment. 



A large share of these are of course inconspicuous, and 

 interesting only to the student of flowers. Yet many of them 

 are beautiful and worthy of cultivation. Abroad, our asters, 

 sunflowers, milkweeds and rudbeckias are held in high esteem, 

 and the leading dealers in our own country are beginning to 

 offer numbers of them to their customers. 



Must there always be some enthusiastic Eckford or Lemoine 

 to take in hand our wild roses, lilies, [)entstemons, cranesbills or 

 azaleas, and by nursing and petting, hybridizing and sorting out, 

 at last produce something worthy of our notice ! Or, shall we 

 learn to admire our native flowers in all their wild beauty, before 

 the hand of man has changed, almost beyond recognition, their 

 familiar faces. 



Many of the finest plants are not susceptible of cultivation, 

 while others are quite so. The common violets soon overrun our 

 gardens ; so does the bloodroot, and the creeping speedwell. 

 The small yellow lady's slipper and the streptocarpus seem to 

 endure captivity, though they do not thrive, while cj^pripedium 

 acaule and corydalis utterly refuse to live in their strange new 

 liome. 



I wonder how it chances that for a few weeks, cynoglossum, 

 corydalis and the round-leaved violet, spring up and flourish in 

 some little glen, but always remain among the rarities. 



The Labrador tea still grows at North Pond, and Cypripedium 

 parvifiorum in Millbury, while Herb Kobert and arctostaphylos 

 cling with the greatest tenacity to their restricted habitat on 

 Rattlesnake Hill, though in small quantity and with no apparent 

 increase. In contrast to these, I remember that fifteen years 

 ago, in the young woods near the Hermitage in this city, the 

 downy yellow violet and the hepatica grew luxuriantly. Now 

 all are gone. 



To the folly and thoughtlessness of our city people is due the 

 extinction of certain species, but many remarkable cases of this 

 kind cannot be so easily explained. I know where five years 

 ago the delicate corydalis had gained entire possession of the 

 ground topping an extensive ledge of rock ; in a year most of 



