HARPERS GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



clusters in leaf-axils, hidden under the broad protecting leaves. 

 Stamens, 10. Style, slender, its apex making a ring around the 

 5 stigmatic lobes. Leaves, round, oval, or heart-shaped, thick, 

 evergreen, on petioles. Whole plant trailing, prostrate, with 

 woody stems covered with rusty hairs. April and May. 



In open, especially pine woods. 



A universal favorite and a candidate for honorable men- 

 tion as our national flower. We love it because it comes so 

 early and because of its delicious fragrance. It delights in 

 pine woods, which it literally carpets in early spring with 

 delicate, modest bloom. You may dig the snow away from 

 shaded corners and find it bright and sweet, looking at you 

 with almost startled eyes. In places it has been plucked to 

 its total extinction. One trembles to see such flowers ex- 

 posed in great bunches on our city's streets for sale. Vandal 

 armies of Italian and Irish boys tramp through our woods 

 and pull them up by the roots for a few cents' gain. Nor 

 are they the only ones who threaten the extermination of 

 some of our beautiful native plants. City girls and even 

 botanical classes on their excursions gather more flowers 

 than they need, not being careful to leave the root behind. 

 Will not those who love flowers do what they can for their 

 protection ? 



The Mayflower is associated, whether correctly or not, 

 with Plymouth Rock and the landing of the Pilgrims. The 

 legend, as beautifully given by Whittier, is that, after their 

 first dreadful winter, this was the first flower to greet the 

 Pilgrims, and that they took courage when they saw so 

 bright a beauty blooming so bravely in poor soil under 

 wintry snows. 



Mrs. Sara J. Hale, in her book, Floras Interpreter, makes 

 this astonishing statement: "The trailing arbutus is a sort 

 of strawberry- vine found in New England in March, the 

 earliest of all spring flowers." (See illustration, p. 109.) 



Creeping Wintergreen. Checkerberry 



GaultherU procumbens — Family, Heath. Color, white. Calyx, 

 5-parted. Corolla, bell-shaped, swollen in the middle, somewhat 

 contracted at the top, with 5 points. Stamens, 10, each with 2 

 round anther cells, opening by a hole at the top. Fruit, not 

 strictly a berry, made of the calyx adhering to the ovary and 

 grown fleshy. Flowers, 1 , or a few, hanging from the axils of the 



