THE WILD GARDEN. I g I 



tubers, formerly a favorite food of those silent tribes whose flints 

 are now turned up by the plough within the shadow of the plant. 



What pathetic traditions of the primeval American are brought 

 from the wilderness to our doors i.n the fragrance of this true na- 

 tive vine ! How many of the wild blossoming things among which 



it now twines are but its comparatively new acquaintances 



plants which have usurped the soil in the revolutionary path of 

 the "pale-face," and equally deserving the historic impeachment 

 of the " rib-grass plantain," known everywhere among the Indians 

 as the " white man's foot !" 



The list of " naturalized foreigners " among our wildest and 

 most common flora would astonish the botanical neophyte even as 

 it continually does the student of botany. These European floral 

 immigrants have followed the track of the white man, and so mo- 

 nopolized the soil that it is no longer possible to distinguish the 

 native from the naturalized. Indeed, the " true American " would 

 seem to be equally indistinguishable, whether among the blossoms 

 or their patriotic admirers. 



Summer after summer, through the medium of the journals, 

 the public is treated to the annual warm discussion concerning 

 the most worthy choice of a national flower; a perennial crop of 

 special pleas of mingled wheat, chaff, and tares, which offers much 

 food for mirthful, tolerant, or serious consideration to the consist- 

 ent citizen, whether he be botanical, natural historical, poetical, or 

 patriotic in his bias. A long list of candidates has been put in 

 the field. If there has been one feature stranger than another in 

 the amiable and entirely needless controversy, it has been that the 

 one and only authorized floral claimant for the nation's honor, the 

 one perfect symbol of the democracy, unity, grace, wealth, pros- 

 perity, generosity, and beckoning welcome of the new continent, 

 should have found only a bare majority of champions. The won- 

 der is that she should have stood in need of a champion at all, 

 when she speaks so ably for herself along every road -side, in 

 every field, wood, and prairie, from Nova Scotia to Mexico, and 

 from Puget Sound to Key West a prophet of El Dorado in the 

 primeval wilderness, and a preordained embodiment of the new 



