NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 



prairies of the North-west, where miles of Sunflowers, 

 Kudbeckias, Liatris and other gorgeous flowers blue, white, 

 red may be seen all through the hot summer months, the 

 orange and yellow stars of the Helianthus tribe above all 

 conspicuously apparent. 



The garden Sunflower may often be met with within the 

 forest, the seed having been carried by the ground-hog or 

 squirrel and dropped on the road. I have seen little piles 

 of the ripe seed of the garden Sunflower lying on stumps 

 and rails to dry, the industrious little gleaners depositing 

 them in such places to be hoarded at their convenience in 

 their granaries. The same thing may be noticed during the 

 harvest-time near the wheat-fields. I have watched with 

 no little curiosity the heaps of wheat left by these little 

 innocent gleaners, and have seen them come with their com- 

 panions to fetch away their newly-threshed stores, having 

 first carefully destroyed the germs. Who taught the squirrel 

 this latter wise precaution to prevent the germination of the 

 grain? 



Many years ago, while living on a wild lot on the Rice 

 Lake, my son, in digging the ground for the construction of 

 a root-house, discovered a granary of a squirrel, or it might 

 be of a ground-hog, the Canadian marmot. A large supply 

 of Indian corn, beech-nuts and acorns was stored many feet 

 below the surface of the dry sandy soil; but the eye or 

 germ had been carefully bitten out of each one. 



DANDELION Taraxacum Dens-leonis ( Desf . ) . 



The Composite Order presents us with more numerous 

 families of plants than any other, and supplies us with a 

 host of flowers, and also some troublesome weeds, which are 

 of wide diffusion, the winged seeds being borne to great 



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