THE WILD GARDEN. 177 
and will continue so to do if my friends the vandals will only 
be content to 
“love the flower, 
And leave it on its stalk”’; 
for at best, and to be consistent, I cannot feel that Nature will 
long countenance its existence, and fain would I see it die a nat- 
ural death. There is a long list of similar exceptions to tempt 
the curious scientific eye to be found in our walks. The purple 
meadow-rue of my friend is by no means as rare a find as he 
imagines. He has simply happened to miss it. Almost any fa- 
vorite habitat of the plant will disclose its purple specimen. Pink 
yarrow and pink wild-carrot are also frequently to be met with, 
in the latter case that customary purple-black floret in the centre 
of the white bloom seeming to have dissolved like pigment and 
spread throughout the saucer. 
I once found a blueflag plant upon which nearly all the flow- 
ers were four-parted instead of three, as in the true type; and 
singularly enough, on examination, I found that the only pod 
which had approached maturity was empty, its seeds having been 
devoured by a caterpillar. “Mere chance?” say you. Well, we 
cannot decide that point. No derision shall change my faith 
that this caterpillar had a special mission to fulfil. 
One of the rarest of all these freaks came to my notice for 
the first time this summer in a singular specimen of the Indian- > 
pipe, and one which it would seem has thus far escaped the bot- 
anist. It was not the “pale pipe” which we all know, but from 
root to summit was of a deep crimson color, the petals being 
tipped with bright yellow. Its botanical characters referred it to > 
the ordinary species (Monotropa uniflora), the more notable dis- 
tinction besides the color being a fine close down, which was in 
decided contrast to the glossy smoothness of the ordinary form. 
It was doubtless a mere “variety” and not a new species, 
and suggests the speculation as to which of the two forms is the 
true type: whether this ruddy individual may not be a sturdy, 
faithful remnant of the ancestral stock, and the pale uncanny 
23 
