VII 



A BUNCH OF HERBS 



FRAGRANT WILD FLOWERS 



rpHE charge that was long ago made against our 

 -'- wild flowers by English travelers in this coun- 

 try, namely, that they were odorless, doubtless had 

 its origin in the fact that, whereas in England the 

 sweet-scented flowers are among the most common 

 and conspicuous, in this country they are rather shy 

 and withdrawn, and consequently not such as trav- 

 elers would be likely to encounter. Moreover, the 

 British traveler, remembering the deliciously fra- 

 grant blue violets he left at home, covering every 

 grassy slope and meadow bank in spring, and the 

 wild clematis, or traveler's joy, overrunning hedges 

 and old walls with its white, sweet-scented blos- 

 soms, and finding the corresponding species here 

 equally abundant but entirely scentless, very natu- 

 rally inferred that our wild flowers were all deficient 

 in this respect. He would be confirmed in this 

 opinion when, on turning to some of our most beau- 

 tiful and striking native flowers, like the laurel, the 

 rhododendron, the columbine, the inimitable fringed 

 gentian, the burning cardinal-flower, or our asters 

 and goldenrod, dashing the roadsides with tints of 



