about it and lies down to pleasant dreams." 

 It is true that some wild roses may be found 

 open at night, but these are the ones whose 

 seeds are fertilized and whose pollen is carried 

 off, so that rain and dew are no longer to be 

 feared. 



The bright red "hips" have a pleasant flavor, 

 but their outer covering irritates the throat, 

 and today they are left for wild things to eat. 

 Old writers refer to them as highly esteemed 

 delicacies. "Children with great delight eat 

 the berries thereof when they are ripe, and 

 make chaines and other pretty geegaws of the 

 fruit; cookes and gentlewomen make tarts and 

 suchlike dishes for pleasure,." testifies _ one. 

 We are rich enough in more luscious fruit to- 

 day to forego this doubtful dainty. The "hip" 

 is designed to tempt the birds, which some- 

 times drop the seeds it contains miles away 

 from the mother plant. 



Large swellings or galls are frequently 

 found on the rose bush. "Robin's Cushions," 

 the country people call them, although they 

 have nothing to relate them to the robin except 

 a somewhat reddish color. Their origin is 

 found in a kind of wasp — the rose-gall — which 

 punctures a bud and lays its eggs inside. 

 Numerous larvae are hatched and later creep 

 into the leaf tissue, while the bud swells into 

 a gall. The taste of these objects is suffi- 

 ciently unpleasant to have gained for them a 

 reputation for medicinal virtue in earlier days. 



The choice of the wild rose, by common 

 consent, as the State flower of Iowa is only 

 one of many tributes to it. English poetry 

 breathes its fragrance in many pretty verses. 

 The scenes of Scott's "Lady of the Lake" are 

 profuse with "wild rose, eglantine, and broom." 

 Yet so elusive is the charm of this blossom's 

 simplicity that it remained for a great Ameri- 

 can composer to express it most truly in the 

 wistful sweetness of music. 



THE WILD PRAIRIE ROSE 

 (Rosa blanda) 



North Dakota's floral queen is the species 

 known to botanists as rosa blanda; to others 

 by various names in different localities. Rang- 

 ing from Newfoundland to New Jersey and 

 westward to where the Rocky Mountains cut 

 off its march toward the land of the setting 

 sun, it is known here as the "smooth," there as 

 the "early," and elsewhere as the "meadow." 

 It is indeed a bland rose, for usually it is en- 

 tirely unarmed, with neither true thorn nor 

 bark-attached prickle to defend itself. Now 

 and then it may possess a few weak prickles 

 as a sort of family crest or to show its friend- 

 liness with its thorny relatives. Its flowers are 

 a trifle larger than those of the climbing rose 

 and change from pink to pure white. 



The wild rose has many relatives. Among 

 these are the strawberry, with its tufted stem, 

 the cinquefoils, with their creeping traits, the 

 spikelike burnett and agrimony, the scrambling 

 blackberries and raspberries, the blackthorn 

 and the hawthorn, the cherry, the mountain 



ash, the apple and the pear — every variety of 

 size and shape and style, from the lowly creeper 

 to the big spreading tree, within the limits of 

 a single flower family. 



THE MAGNOLIA 



(Magnolia grandiflora L.) 



When Louisiana's legislature and Missis- 

 sippi's school children awarded the magnolia 

 the high praise of rating it first among the 

 flowers of their respective States and declar- 

 ing that it best typifies their ideals and ex- 

 presses their aspirations, they selected a floral 

 emblem widely known and universally ad- 

 mired, not less for its exquisite beauty than 

 for its delightful fragrance. The Chinese re- 

 gard the magnolia as symbolical of candor and 

 beauty, and whoever has known the sweetness 

 of its perfume and the charm of its blossom 

 can appreciate the tribute (see page 506). 



There are many kinds of magnolias, each 

 with its own peculiar attractions. But queen 

 of them all is the grandiflora, which has bor- 

 rowed all the beauties of the laurel and the 

 rhododendron. It has a straight trunk, two 

 feet in diameter, which often rises to a height 

 of 70 feet. It is an evergreen, with leaves not 

 unlike those of the laurel, glossy green on top, 

 rusty brown beneath, and oval-oblong in shape. 

 It bears a profusion of large, creamy white, 

 lemon-scented flowers. As these latter reach 

 their final stages before the petals fall, they 

 turn a pale apricot hue. When fruiting time 

 comes it is a cone of dangling scarlet seeds 

 that we see. 



There are numerous other varieties indig- 

 enous to America, among them the glauca, a 

 beautiful evergreen species found in low situ- 

 ations near the sea, from Massachusetts to 

 Louisiana. Another is the "cucumber tree," 

 well known for its small fruits resembling cu- 

 cumbers. Its range is from Pennsylvania to 

 the Carolinas, mostly in the mountains. Its 

 wood is much prized by farmers for making 

 hay ladders, bowls, and other implements and 

 utensils where a hard, non-warping material is 

 needed. Still another species is the umbrella 

 tree. The tulip tree, also a member of the 

 family, is of American origin. 



The Chinese have a species of magnolia 

 which gives them a medicine for healing and 

 a flavor for improving the gustatory qualities 

 of boiled rice. It is said that India has a spe- 

 cies that surpasses all others in size, having a 

 trunk which sometimes attains a girth of 12 

 feet and reaches a height of 150 feet. Western 

 Europe has gathered species from China, 

 Japan, India, and America, and although all 

 of them are imported, they seldom reach the 

 magnificence in their native habitat that they 

 attain under the careful attentions of the 

 landscape gardeners in the climes of their 

 adoption. 



The beetle is the special insect patron of the 

 magnolia. Abundant pollen and nectar in pro- 

 fusion suit it so well that instead of making a 

 fleeting visit to a flower it shelters itself in the 

 soft petals and stays and stays until dispcs- 



493 



