NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 
into English gardens as a rarity before I saw it growing in 
all its wild beauty on the margins of the Otonabee, on my 
first journey, or rather voyage, up the country. There, grow- 
ing at the edge of the low grassy flats beside the water, its 
tall loose spike of deep red flowers fluttering in the breeze 
and reddening the surface of the bright river with the reflec- 
tion.of its glorious color, this splendid flower first met my 
admiring eyes. 
It was but a short time before that I had seen it cultivated 
as a new and rare border flower, and here it was in all its 
loveliness on the banks of a lonely forest stream which then 
flowed through an almost unbroken wilderness, growing 
uncared for, unsought for and unvalued. The people, a rude 
set of Irish settlers, were amused at the delight with which 
I plucked the flowers. They cared for none of these things; 
they were to them only useless weeds. 
There are several varieties of the Cardinal Flower occa- 
sionally found among the wild plants near the inland lakes 
and creeks of the backwoods, some with flesh-colored corollas, 
or white striped with red; but these variations are not very 
common. The prettiest of the blue-flowered plants of the 
Lobelia family is a small, delicate, branching one, with azure- 
blue and white petals, which is cultivated in hanging baskets, 
as its bright blue flowers and slender leaves droop gracefully 
over the pot or basket and contrast charmingly with larger 
flowers of deeper color and more vivid foliage. 
The largest of the North American Lobelias is L. syph- 
ilitica,* a stout-stemmed, many-flowered species, which is 
chiefly found near springs; the flowers are full blue and the 
spike much crowded; the height about eighteen or twenty 
inches; leaves light green. The plant seems to flourish in 
clayey soil near water, and is not often cultivated. Another 
* See Plate X. 
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