78 THE WILD GARDEN. 
garden borders, but must be cushioned on moss, and associated 
with their own relatives in moist peat soil. Many beautiful 
plants, like the Wind Gentian and Creeping Harebell, grow 
on our own bogs and marshes, much as these are now 
encroached upon. But even those acquainted with the beauty 
of the plants of our own bogs have, as a rule, but a feeble notion 
of the multitude of charming plants, natives of northern and 
temperate countries, whose home is-the open marsh or boggy 
wood. In our own country, we have been so long encroach- 
Marsh Marigold and Iris in early spring. (See p. 77.) 
ing upon the bogs and wastes that some of us come to regard 
them as exceptional tracts all over the world. But when one 
travels in new countries in northern climes, one soon learns 
what a vast extent of the world’s surface was at one time 
covered with bogs. In North America day after day, even 
by the margins of the railroads, one sees the vivid blooms 
of the Cardinal-flower springing erect from the wet peaty 
hollows. Far under the shady woods stretch the black bog- 
pools, the ground between being so shaky that you move a 
few steps with difficulty. One wonders how the trees exist 
with their roots in such a bath. And where the forest vege- 
tation disappears the American Pitcher-plant (Sarracenia), 
