STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 



Latin. This was a drawback in acquiring the information 

 I required; however, I did manage to make some use of 

 the book, and when I came to a standstill I had recourse 

 to my husband, and there being a glossary of the common 

 names, as well as one of the botanical, I contrived to get 

 a familiar knowledge of both. 



My next teachers were old settlers' wives, and choppers 

 and Indians. These gave me knowledge of another kind, 

 and so by slow steps, and under many difficulties, I gleaned 

 my plant-lore. Having, as I have said, no resource in 

 botanical works on our native flora, save what I could 

 glean from Pursh, I was compelled to rely almost entirely 

 upon my own powers of observation. This did much ta 

 enhance my interest in my adopted country and add to 

 my pleasure as a relief, at times, from the home-longings 

 that always arise in the heart of the exile, especially when 

 the sweet opening days of Spring recall to the memory of 

 the immigrant Canadian settler old familiar scenes, when 

 the hedges put out their green buds, and the Violets scent 

 the air; when pale Primroses and the gay starry Celandine 

 gladden the eye, and the little green lanes and wood-paths 

 are so pleasant to ramble through among the Daisies and 

 Bluebells and Buttercups; when all the gay embroidery 

 of English meads and hedgerows put on their bright array. 

 But for the Canadian forest flowers and trees and shrubs, 

 and the lovely ferns and mosses, I think I should not 

 have been as contented as I have been away from dear old 

 England. It was in the hope of leading other lonely hearts 

 to enjoy the same pleasant recreation that I have so often 

 pointed out the natural beauties of this country to their 

 attention, and now present my forest gleanings to them in a 

 simple form, trusting that it may not prove an unacceptable 



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