6i4 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 253. 



ment land, for which the owners of the sheep paid no rent 

 nor taxes, and these immense herds devour everything in 

 the way of vegetation. The difficulties in the way of re- 

 straining these cattle and sheep-herders from trespassing 

 on the reservations are discouraging, and until the parks 

 are surveyed, the boundaries distinctly marked, and penal- 

 ties provided against lawlessness, these forests are in con- 

 stant danger. 



The vandalism of tourists is complained of in the report 

 on the Yellowstone Park. Poachers have settled all around 

 it so that the game has no adequate protection. There are 

 four hundred buffaloes on the reservation, and a few moose 

 in the southern part, but as they roam beyond the line they 

 are in danger of extinction. There are several large bands 

 of mountain sheep here, too, but as their finest range is 

 north of the Lamar and Soda Butte Creek they will disap- 

 pear if that portion of the park is cut off in accordance with 

 the bill for establishing new boundaries which is under 

 consideration by Congress. The Secretary, for this and 

 other reasons, opposes this so-called segregation project, 

 and advocates the passage of an act defining the boun- 

 daries of the park as they now exist, including, however, 

 the timber reserve added by the President's proclama- 

 tion. Some strong arguments against the surrender of 

 the north-east portion of the park to the Cooke City lobby 

 are set forth in the issue of Forest and Stream for December 

 8th. We have already spoken of the fact that six forest- 

 reservations, including three and a quarter million of acres, 

 have now been established imder the new law, and this 

 beneficent policy will probably be further carried into 

 effect, but unless the reservations are protected by detach- 

 ments from the army, as has been done in the Yellowstone 

 Park and the Sequoia Park, there is no way to save them 

 from the depredations of thieves or the still more sweeping 

 desolation by fire. 



The sum of it all is that we have set apart from the pub- 

 lic domain certain tracts for national parks and forests, 

 but their boundary-lines have never been defined, and no 

 law has ever been enacted which establishes a system of 

 government within their limits with appropriate executive 

 machinery and prescribed penalties for the violation of its 

 provisions. 



Picturesque Names for Flowers. 



MRS. FANNY D. BERGEN has contributeci to the Jour- 

 nal of American Folk-Lore a valuable and interesting 

 collection of popular plant names that are found in America, 

 showing that wherever people live in close contact with na- 

 ture, there arises a pleasant homely sympathy with floral 

 growth, that results in names which are often agreeably de- 

 scriptive of some quaint look of the flower, or of its practical 

 uses. 



In England the common flowers all have names endeared 

 to us by inheritance, and often embalmed in poet's verse ; and 

 in our own land, while we keep many of the dear old terms, 

 others have grown up among the country people or the chil- 

 dren, that are often equally happy and appropriate. 



These names Mrs. Bergen has with much pains gathered to- 

 gether in a pamphlet, which is full of interest to the reader who 

 loves the simple blossoms that carelessly adorn our roadsides 

 and meadows, or are cidtivated in the cottage garden-patch. 

 Indeed, it makes us wish that the new and splendid blossoms 

 which the skilled gardener's care is ever producing might be 

 equally inspiring to the florist, so that the glory of Chrysanthe- 

 mums, for instance, with their wealth of color and luxuriant 

 form, might be known to us, as they are to the Japanese, by 

 delicate and suggestive appellations, rather than by the tire- 

 some complimentary names of people, which are without sig- 

 nificance or beauty. 



Our oriental brother, who loves his garden,, and delights in 

 this splendid opulent blossom of the fading year, lets his poeti- 

 cal fancy revel in the suggestions of these many-tinted florets, 

 and, like a lover, finds fanciful and tender names to describe 

 these curled darlings of the parterre, such as Silver World, or 

 White Dragon, or Companion of the Moon, which fitly convey 

 the snowy glories of some great white blossom. Again, he calls 

 one varied yellow flower Golden Brocade ; a paler golden one. 

 Dye of the Dew ; a dull red beauty he entitles Shadows of 

 the Evening Sun ; another, with a tinge of orange in the 



carmine, is Moon's Halo ; a third, which glows afar, is Beacon 

 Light ; a fourth, with linings of yellow to its maroon petals, he 

 styles Leaves in Frost. For a soft globe of dubious hue he 

 finds the descriptive term Thin Mist ; a pale pink he calls Sky 

 at Dawn ; another white one lives before us with its myriad 

 blooms as Starlight Night, and one, with tangled petals wildly 

 straying, he styles Disheveled Hair; while for a glowing flower 

 of vast proportions, Terrestrial Globe is not too comprehen- 

 sive a term to his charming imagination. 



Contrast these poetical and delicate descriptive titles with 

 the prosaic lists of the nurseryman, with his Mrs. John Smith, 

 and Abijah Jones, and Hezekiah Brown, or their equivalents, 

 to degrade these royalties of the garden from their high es- 

 tate ; and mark the difference between a sensitive and poetic 

 people, who truly love a blossom, and the unimaginative, hard- 

 headed Anglo-Saxon who trades in herbaceous plants. 



But when quite out of heart with the lack of appropriateness 

 in the catalogues of Roses and Pasonies and Lilies that we are 

 yearly compelled to study, it is pleasant to take up this little 

 list of Mrs. Bergen's and see what our people will do when let 

 alone. 



Here are found such pretty names as Cups of Flame for the 

 gay Eschscholtzia, and Eye-bright for the Drosera rotundifolia, 

 which is more closely translated in our botanies as Sun-dew, 

 from its shining exudations. In Canada they call the Red 

 Lychnis Scarlet Lightning ; in Ohio, Fireballs. In some places 

 the Claytonia, or Spring Beauty, is known as Good-morning- 

 spring ; in Massachusetts the Argemone Mexicana is Bird-in- 

 the-bush, and Silene Armeria, None-so-pretty, while the ex- 

 plosive Jewel-weed, or Touch-me-not, is Kicking-colt, and the 

 Polygala paucifolia is Babies'-toes. The pretty names for the 

 starry Houstonia are numerous, and so charming one scarcely 

 knows which to choose. Blue-eyed Babies, Quaker Ladies, 

 Angel Eyes, Innocence, Nuns, Bright Eyes, are all appropriate, 

 and there are more besides. "There is no sweeter name for the 

 Pansy than the old-fashioned New England one, Lady's De- 

 light, but all through the middle states one hears of it only as 

 Johnny-jump-up. In North Carolina the children call the 

 Violets Rooster-hoods, probably the same variety that some of 

 our botanies recognize as Hood-leaved Violet, from the curl at 

 the bottom of the leaf. The omnipresent Life-everlasting is 

 in northern New York called Feather-weed, because it is used 

 by poor people to fill beds when feathers are lacking ; and 

 here in Hingham many people call them Pincushions, from 

 their round ball-like effect, with tiny black spots hke the heads 

 of pins scattered over them. 



The Chicory's azure blossoms are called Blue Sailors in 

 Brooklyn, New York ; the Chimaphila umbellala is known in 

 Maine as Love-in-winter ; the Monotropa, with its spectral 

 white pipe, has the fitting name of Ghost-flower in New Bruns- 

 wick, and the Castilleia coccinea, with its scarlet-painted cup, 

 is in the west called Prairie-fire, aiid in Massachusetts, Indian 

 Paint-brush, or Red Indians. Euphorbia marginata is known 

 in New Hampshire and Nebraska by the picturesque name of 

 Snow-on-the-mountains. Whether this is the flower that in- 

 spired Dante Rossett's tragic little verse with its recurring 

 refrain, 



The Wood Spurge hath a cup of three, 



I know not, but the poem has added a poetic interest to all the 

 Spurges. 



In some New England towns the fragrant Bayberry, with its 

 gray-blue fruit, is known as the Candleberry, from the use 

 made of the wax that exudes from it, which, obtained by boil- 

 ing, makes a tallow fit for candles. The wild Orchids, with 

 their suggestive shapes, are always fruitful in descriptive 

 names. Lady's-slipper, Whip-poor-will Shoes, Dragon's- 

 mouth. Nerve-root, Dragon's-claw, Coral-root, Adam and Eve, 

 Ladies'-tresses, Ram's-head, are all appplied to different mem- 

 bers of this curious family. 



Yucca filamentosa, with its sharp points and hairy filaments, 

 is known in Massachusetts as Thread-and-needle, and in 

 Texas as Eve's Darning-needle. For some unknown reason, 

 similar, no doubt, to the one which causes that 



II n'y a pas un ane en toute la France 

 Qui ne s'appelle pas Martin, 



all the Trilliums in New Brunswick are called Benjamin, 

 sometimes with the addition of an opprobrious epithet refer- 

 ring to their odor. In Wisconsin this beautiful Wake Robin is 

 called the Trinity Lily. In New England Trillium erectum is 

 recognized as Bumble-bee-root, or Squaw-root. We all know 

 the significance of Jack-in-the-pulpit, but the same Arum is 

 known as Indian Cradle, from a fancied resemblance to a pap- 

 poose with the hood drawn over its head, and also as Dragon- 

 root and Lady-in-a-chaise. 



