INTRODUCTION 



It may be well to remind flower-loving folk that 

 some of our plants are in sore need of a little in- 

 telligent affection. Unless speedily befriended, 

 the exquisite Trailing Arbutus will quite vanish 

 from our hillsides, leaving behind only a memory 

 of its loveliness. The cutting of the blossoms 

 would be harmless enough, but it is the ripping up 

 of the creeping, slow-growing root-fibres for con- 

 venient picking which makes the extinction of this 

 darling New-Englander so certain. The bunches 

 for sale in 4 the city streets represent the death of 

 millions of little unborn Mayflowers. The next 

 plant to go will be the Mountain Laurel. Other 

 flowers whose existence is in peril are the Fringed 

 Gentian and Hepatica, Orchids, Maiden Hair 

 Fern, Sabatia, Ground Pine or Club Moss and 

 the Hollies. 



The nature love which manifests itself in a kind 

 of pot-hunter's enthusiasm or sees in each rare 

 flower only a kind of botanical scalp to be added 

 to his belt, is a poor sort of affection, and though 

 perhaps one cannot sing about that Millennium of 

 Flowers when folk will be content to love the wood 

 rose and leave it on its stalk, we may live to see it 

 cut instead of torn from its stem and the last 

 Fringed Gentian respected and left to perpetuate 

 its lovely kind. 



FRANCES DUNCAN. 



BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, January, 1910. 



