AMONG THE WILD FLOWERS 31 



is sometimes called lion's-foot. The flower is cream- 

 colored, but quite inconspicuous. The noticeable 

 thing about it is the drooping or pendulous clusters 

 of what appear to be buds, but which are the in- 

 volucres, bundles of purple scales, like little staves, 

 out of which the flower emerges. 



In another place I caught sight of something in- 

 tensely blue in a wet, weedy place, and, on getting 

 some of it, found it to be the closed gentian, a 

 flower to which I have already referred as never 

 opening, but always remaining a bud. Four or 

 five of these blue buds, each like the end of your 

 little finger and as long as the first joint, crown the 

 top of the stalk, set in a rosette of green leaves. It 

 is one of our rarer flowers, and a very interesting 

 one, well worth getting out of the wagon to gather. 

 As I drove through a swampy part of Ulster County, 

 my attention was attracted by a climbing plant over- 

 running the low bushes by the sluggish streams, and 

 covering them thickly with clusters of dull white 

 flowers. I did not remember ever to have seen it 

 before, and, on taking it home and examining it, 

 found it to be climbing boneset. The flowers are so 

 much like those of boneset that you would suspect 

 their relationship at once. 



Without the name, any flower is still more or less 

 a stranger to you. The name betrays its family, its 

 relationship to other flowers, and gives the mind 

 something tangible to grasp. It is very difiicult for 

 persons who have had no special training to learn the 

 names of the flowers from the botany. The botany 



