198 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



in these names ! Where did they come from ? 

 What did they mean to the first red-brown men 

 who spoke them ? There must be many lovers 

 of our America who regret that so few such 

 links are left to bind us to the old races who 

 were here before us. It was a most pathetic 

 and tender trait in our ancestors which led 

 them to try to see in the wild growths of the 

 land of their exile some likeness to the flowers 

 of the old gardens and old fields and copses 

 they had left behind them, and so to perpetuate 

 the old names. It is a pity, beyond words, 

 that they overlooked the opportunity, which 

 can never come again, for knowing the 

 aboriginal names, and that the little knowledge 

 that we have is so widely scattered that no full 

 or convenient lists are to be found. Perhaps 

 we exaggerate the probability of the existence 

 of a full vocabulary of plant names among the 

 Indians. If we ask one to-day for the name 

 of a flower, it is ten to one that he answers 

 " wauwausquane not good for anything," and 

 we learn our first lesson : a plant not to be used 

 as a dye, or a food, or a medicine, is nothing 

 only a flower. 



Such of the old names as are left have been 



