Wild Flowers of Georgetown: A Study in Field- 

 Botany for Tyros. 



By Exley Per rival, B A., Principal of Queen's College. 



JFZmm^i H E most enthusiastic lover of a garden will 

 H?S r3?t probably admit that, highly as we prize the 

 ftrf**>\j3l fair floral denizens of what old writers 

 call "the gay parterre," there is still a more potent 

 spell than theirs in the simple wild flowers that deck 

 every nook and corner of our Northern lands with 

 ever-varying grace of form and colour. We all do 

 willing homage to the stately rose that holds the un- 

 challenged title of "Queen of the Garden;" but it is the 

 wild brambling, the pink or white dog-rose luxuriating in 

 the June hedgerows, that is dearest to poet and painter 

 and to all true lovers of flowers. And so with other culti- 

 vated plants ; we all admire them, and many of the 

 old-fashioned favourites of the pleasant country gardens 

 of farm and cottage — pinks and carnations, gilly-flovvers, 

 mignonette, sweet-lavender, and all the rest of the frag- 

 rant posy — are regarded with a sort of affection that 

 new-comers and rare exotics fail to win. But the true 

 names to conjure with are those of the wild flowers pure 

 and simple : March daffodils and April primroses, cow- 

 slips and violets, blue-bells and wood-anemones : and 

 then the star-worts and red-robins and fox-gloves and 

 honeysuckle in the winding lanes : and willow-weed and 

 forget-me-nots and meadow-sweet by every brook and 

 channel : and wild-thyme and nodding hare-bells and 



