480 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



day it will interest you to 

 know how all these plants 

 get their hard scientific 

 names, which frighten so 

 many people away from a 

 more serious study of 

 them; tnis bellwort will 

 give you some idea of it. 

 A\l ttie diilerent Kmds of 

 bellwort have drooping 

 Mowers like the one you 

 see here, so we must have 

 a group-name (genusj for 

 them. It has been called 

 Uvular ia. Now if you 

 will look down your throat 

 in a glass you will note 

 a soft little thing, hang- 

 ing loosely from the roof 

 at the back and directly 

 in the middle of it; this 

 is called the uvula; and, 

 as a bellwort flower droops 

 like a uvula, the group 

 has been called Uvularia. 

 That is not hard? Now 

 we call this particular 

 !)ellwort Uvularia p e r - 

 foliata, that is, it comes 

 from the words meaning 

 a leaf that is pierced; and, 

 if you will take a good 

 look at how the leaves (as 

 they are shown in Figure 

 \7 ) appear to be pierced by 

 the stem (they really clasp 

 the stem), you will un 

 derstand why we so name 

 this flower, and thus dis 

 tinguish the species from all the other bellworts. You 

 will come across Wild Bergamot in August, and there is 

 a splendid specimen of it here given in Figure 18. The 

 flowers run through a series of shades, all the way from 

 white to a deep magenta. Scarlet Oswego Tea, with its 

 deep red flowers, has a general look like this Bergamot. 

 but you cannot very well confuse them. 



Strange to say, the Great Lobelia or Blue Cardinal 

 flower, is not .so distantly related to the Red Cardinal 

 flower seen in Figure 1 ; but why this is so is a long 

 story, and too long a one to tell here. Sometimes its 

 heads have a very different form as shown in Figure 19 ; 

 but departures of this kind are seen in many flowers in 

 nature, and you should always give them your attention. 

 There is nothing present on the part of any flower which 

 is not worthy of your most careful study. This big, blue 

 Lobelia, with its wealth of bright blue flowers, some- 

 times grows to be fully a vard high; so you will have 



no trouble in finding plenty 

 of it growing down by the 

 marshes, and along the soft, 

 swampy shores of sluggish 

 streams. After you once 

 know the plant, you will 

 never forget it or its name. 

 So, when you come to 

 places where it grows, and 

 meet with a dozen or more 

 specimens standing up 

 amidst the rank sedges 

 and undergrowth, where 

 you have been trying to 

 force yourself through, it 

 is a great satisfaction to 

 s a y to yourselt : "Oh, I 

 know that thing ; that's 

 the Blue or Great Lo- 

 belia." Ten to one, you 

 will meet with the red one 

 or Cardinal flower as you 

 go a bit further. 



When the stream 

 broadens and becomes still 

 more sluggish, and reaches 

 the pond in the woods 

 (Fig. 20),. you will surely 

 have your hands full to 

 gather all the lovely 

 flowers you will find there. 

 But then. Pickerel Weed. 

 Skunk Cabbage, Jack-in- 

 the-Pulpit, Water Arum. 

 Cow Lily, Burr Reed, Ar- 

 row Head, and the rest of 

 them, are all big and con- 

 spicuous flowers, and it is 

 easy to find out the names 

 of them. Be sure not tn 

 forget to take your flower collecting-case, when you go 

 out on a good, long tramp ; you can buy a nice one at 

 the store where they sell supplies for naturalists, and 

 two dollars and a half is plenty to pay for it. You may 

 find one for something less than that, say about one dol- 

 lar and a half. Then you should take along some news- 

 papers ; some .string ; a few dozen common pins, and a 

 small, strong trowel, or, what is better, a big table-knife 

 to dig plants uj) with entire, when you want to study 

 them at home. A good butterfly-net is another thing 

 that comes in very bandy ; for the time will surely come 

 when you will want to study insects as well as the flowers 

 you find. 



r~iNE of the very few towns where no taxes are as- 

 sessed is Freudenstadt, Germany. This town of 

 7,000 has an annual governmental expense of $25,000, 

 and pays it all from the revenue of 6,000 acres of town 

 forest. 



MANY DISCOVERIES AWAIT HERE 



Fig. 20. A good place to look for water plants. The surface is covered 

 with bright green scum, but this does not prevent your seeing the big 

 plants above it, as the Cat-tails, the purplish Pickerel-weed and other things. 

 Hear that big bull-frog croaking? 



