THE HAUNTS OF FLOWERS. 



There is not a more interesting subject connected with 

 botany than that of the haunts of flowers. We may 

 by chance discover a rare and beautiful plant in a situa- 

 tion that would be the last to invite our attention. The 

 apparent unfitness of the place for aught but common 

 weeds may have preserved it from observation. I have 

 sometimes encountered by the roadside a species for 

 which I had long vainly traversed the woods. On the 

 borders of some of the less frequented roads in the coun- 

 try, the soil and the plants still remain in their primitive 

 condition. In such grounds we may find materials for 

 study for several weeks, without leaving the waysides. 

 Indeed, all those old roads which are not thoroughfares — 

 by-ways not travelled enough to destroy the grass be- 

 tween the ruts of wheels and the middle path made by 

 the feet of horses — are very propitious to the growth 

 of wild plants. The shrubbery on these old roadsides, 

 when it has not been disturbed for a number of years, 

 is far more beautiful than the finest imaginable hedge- 

 row. Here are several viburnums, two or three species 

 of cornel, the bayberry, the sweet fern, the azalea, the 

 rhodora, the small kalmia, and a crowd of whortleberry- 

 bushes, beside the wild rose and eglantine. The narrow 

 footpath through this wayside shrubbery has a magic 

 about it that makes it delightful to pass through it. 

 Lender the shelter of this tangle- wood Nature calls out 

 the anemone, blue, white, and pedate violets, and in 

 damp places the erythronium, the Solomon's seal, and 



