52 SUMMER IN A BOG. 



their office if, in the mysterious order of nature, 

 they were ever fully developed. Like the ver- 

 miform appendix in the human anatomy, they 

 are of no use, and one can only speculate as to 

 why they are there. 



The plant receives its name from the Mount, 

 favored by the muses and the gods, Parnassus ; 

 the name being confeired by Dioscorides, a 

 Greek physician, in the first or second century 

 of the Christian era. 



One lovely day in October I gave a luncheon 

 in honor of one of the fair daughters of the 

 neighborhood whose marriage was soon to be 

 solemnized. A large bowl of fringed gentians, 

 from the swamp in the cornfield, occupied the 

 center of the table, and each guest received a 

 few blossoms of this plant. To the bride was 

 given a small bouquet of Grass of Parnassus, all 

 that the hillside bog had vouchsafed to produce. 



It was the first time that either flower had 

 been seen by any of the twelve guests assem- 

 bled, and their pleasure and interest may be 

 imagined. 



"When we were at Sulphur Springs, Vir- 

 ginia," said one of them, "a young man at the 

 hotel, who was a botanist, spent a lot of his time 

 looking for this flower. Grass of Parnassus. 

 He said that it is very rare, and that he had 

 been told it grew in the neighborhood of the 



