STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
Latin. This was a drawback in acquiring the information 
I required; however, I did manage to make some use of 
the book, and when I came to a standstill I had recourse 
to my husband, and there being a glossary of the common 
names, as well as one of the botanical, I contrived to get 
a familiar knowledge of both. 
My next teachers were old settlers’ wives, and choppers 
and Indians. These gave me knowledge of another kind, 
and so by slow steps, and under many difficulties, I gleaned 
my plant-lore. Having, as I have said, no resource in 
botanical works on our native flora, save what I could 
glean from Pursh, I was compelled to rely almost entirely 
upon my own powers of observation. This did much to 
enhance my interest in my adopted country and add to 
my pleasure as a relief, at times, from the home-longings 
that always arise in the heart of the exile, especially when 
the sweet opening days of Spring recall to the memory of 
‘the immigrant Canadian settler old familiar scenes, when 
the hedges put out their green buds, and the Violets scent 
the air; when pale Primroses and the gay starry Celandine 
gladden the eye, and the little green lanes and wood-paths 
are so pleasant to ramble through among the Daisies and 
Bluebells and Buttercups; when all the gay embroidery 
of English meads and hedgerows put on their bright array. 
But for the Canadian forest flowers and trees and shrubs, 
and the lovely ferns and mosses, I think I should not 
have been as contented as I have been away from dear old 
England. It was in the hope of leading other lonely hearts 
to enjoy the same pleasant recreation that I have so often 
pointed out the natural beauties of this country to their 
attention, and now present my forest gleanings to them in a 
simple form, trusting that it may not prove an unacceptable 
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