THE HAUNTS OF FLOWERS. 59 



But the paradise of the young botanist is a glade, or 

 open space in a wood, usually a level between two rocky 

 eminences, or a little alluvial meadow pervaded by a 

 small stream, open to the sun, and protected at the same 

 time from the winds by surrounding hills and woods. It 

 is surprising how soon the flowery tenants of one of these 

 glades will vanish after the removal of this bulwark of 

 trees. But with this protection, the loveliest flowers will 

 cluster there, like the singing-birds around a cottage and 

 its enclosures in the wilderness. Here they find a genial 

 soil and a natural conservatory, and abide there until 

 some accident destroys them. Nature selects these places 

 for her favorite garden-plots. In the centre she rears her 

 tender herbs and flowers, and her shrubbery in the bor- 

 ders, while the trees form a screen around the whole. I 

 have often seen one of these glades crimsoned all over 

 with flowers of the cymbidiuin and arethusa, with wild 

 roses in their borders, vying in splendor with a sumptu- 

 ous parterre. 



While strolling through a wood in one of those rustic 

 avenues which have been made by the farmer or the 

 woodman, we shall soon discover that this path is like- 

 wise a favorite resort for many species of wild-flowers. 

 Except the glade, there are but few places so bountifully 

 stored by nature with a starry profusion of bloom. The 

 cranesbill, the wood anemone, the cinquefoil, the yellow 

 Bethlehem-star, the houstonia, to say nothing of crowds 

 of violets, adorn the verdant sward of these woodpaths ; 

 and still beyond them, cherished by the sunshine that is 

 admitted into this opening, ginsengs, bellworts, the white 

 starlike trientalis, the trillium, and medeola thrive more 

 prosperously than in situations entirely wild and primi- 

 tive. It is pleasant to note how kindly Nature receives 

 these little disturbances which are made by the woodman, 

 and how many beautiful things will assemble there, to be 



