STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
with round green bell-shaped flowers and dark-tipped 
anthers. This is Pyrola chlorantha (Swartz). 
Though we have none of the heaths that clothe the hills 
and common-lands of Scotland and England, we have a 
large number of beautiful and highly ornamental as well 
as useful plants and flowering shrubs belonging to the 
Natural Order Ericacee, which are widely diffused all 
over the northern and eastern portions of the continent; 
wherever there exists a similarity in climate, soil and 
altitude of the land, there we may expect to find members 
of the same natural orders. Thus we find spread over the 
northern and eastern portions of this continent plants that 
are common to northern European countries; we have repre- 
sentatives of many familiar flowers, belonging to such 
families as the Lily, Rose, Violet, Phlox, Saxifrage, Mint, 
Dogwood, Pyrola, and Campanula—in fact we cannot 
enumerate the half of what we recognize in our woodlands 
and plains. It is true that the eye of the botanist will dis- 
‘cover some differences in the species, but in most instances 
these are so little apparent that a casual observer would 
not notice them. The Pyrola has its representative flower 
in England; the Linnea in Norway. Our pretty Smilacina 
bifolia, or “ Wild Lily of the Valley,”* and our Low Cornel 
are also found, with many of our native ferns, in that 
northern land of mountain, flood and forest. 
It is pleasant to recognize an old familiar flower—it is 
like the face of an old friend in a foreign country, bringing 
back the memory of days lang syne when the flowers that 
we gathered in our childhood were a joy and a delight to 
heart and eye. 
*See plate IX. 
66 
