zation, the sunflower is a native American 

 gone forth to render rich recompense to other 

 nations and other continents for the plants 

 they have given us. In China its fiber is used 

 as an adulterant of silk; in southern Russia 

 the seeds are widely employed both in making 

 oil and as a substitute for our peanut. The 

 pocketful of sunflower seed plays the same 

 role in some parts of Russia as the bag of pea- 

 nuts here. Much of the sunflower oil pro- 

 duced in Russia is used in making soaps and 

 candles. Europe, Asia, and Africa all culti- 

 vate this plant. 



When the Spaniards first visited Peru they 

 found the sunflower as much the national 

 flower of the Incas as it today is the State 

 flower of Kansas. The Incas gave it a deeper 

 reverence because of its resemblance to the 

 radiant sun. In their temples the priestesses 

 wore sunflowers on their bosoms, carried them 

 in lieu of tapers, and otherwise used them in 

 their services. The Spanish invaders found 

 many images of sunflowers wrought with ex- 

 quisite workmanship in pure virgin gold. 

 These wonderful images, among many others, 

 helped to excite the cupidity of the conquista- 

 dors and thus to bring about the downfall of 

 the Incas. 



In North America there are about 40 known 

 species of sunflower. South America has 

 about 20 species that do not exist on our own 

 continent. 



THE TRUMPET VINE 

 (Bignonia radicans L.) 



Who that has studied the enthusiasm with 

 which that frail and filmy creature, the ruby- 

 throated humming-bird, flits from flower to 

 flower of the trumpet vine, burying its head 

 and shoulders deep in the enveloping petals as 

 it strives to drain the last drop from the floral 

 honey cup, or who that has observed closely 

 the constant effort of the trumpet flower to 

 captivate this capricious, swift-winged beauty 

 can doubt the community of interest between 

 them. When Audubon came to paint his plate 

 showing the ruby-throats in life colors, he por- 

 trayed them hovering about a cluster of the 

 trumpet vine's flowers (see page 509). 



Kentucky has made the trumpet vine her 

 State flower, and few States can boast of such 

 a brilliant member of the sisterhood of em- 

 blematic blossoms. Growing on a vine that 

 has as much vitality as a Lexington thorough- 

 bred and as much resourcefulness in holding 

 its own in the gruelling free-for-all race for 

 existence as any star of the turf, the trumpet 

 flower is well beloved by those who live within 

 the Blue Grass State and by a host who enjoy 

 no such fortune. 



Except in the West, the vine is no blatant 

 intruder in places where it is not wanted and 

 never drives the careful farmer distracted by 

 a disposition to preempt land which he dedi- 

 cates to grass. Rather it seeks the moist rich 

 wood and thicket, desiring only to have its 

 chance to survive in this habitat without in- 

 truding upon every kind of landscape. Invited 

 to do so by the lover of flowers, it willingly 



comes out of the woods and forms a delightful 

 arbor for any porch. Sometimes, in parts of 

 the country where it did not originally grow 

 wild, it lives as an "escape" from the portico 

 arbor of the well-kept home. It begins to 

 flower in August and seeds in September. From 

 Jersey's shores to the Mississippi's banks, from 

 the Lakes to the Gulf, it finds hospitable soil 

 and genial weather. 



Were it human, the trumpet vine would per- 

 haps not be loved so well. Its instincts of sur- 

 vival are so strong that it does not hesitate to 

 trample upon the rights of weaker neighbors 

 in its efforts to reach the top. Sometimes its 

 aerial rootlets carry it upward or onward until 

 it has stalks as much as 40 feet long. Ever 

 reaching up and striving for a place with the 

 elect of the plant world, it would be in danger 

 of being called a "social climber" ; but as a 

 flower we can admire its determination to win 

 its place in the unhampered room at the top. 



THE PINE CONE AND TASSEL 

 (Pinus strobus L) 



When the school children of Maine elected 

 the pine cone and tassel as the floral standard 

 bearer for their State, they not only followed 

 the precedent that made theirs the "Pine Tree 

 State," but they honored the first-born of the 

 flowering plants ; for science tells us that in 

 the long process of evolution, when some of 

 the members of the fern family began to strive 

 for higher things, their first success on the 

 road to perfection was to become cone-bearers. 

 And so today the cone-bearers remain the great 

 middle class in the flower world between the 

 plebeian fern on the one hand and the patri- 

 cian rose and the noble lily on the other (see 

 page 510). 



How wonderful and how charming is the 

 story of the pine's household economy! It is 

 so equipped that it can make its home down in 

 the lands of tropic warmth or up in the re- 

 gions of polar snow. The last tree one meets, 

 almost, on a climb to the high summits of snow- 

 capped mountains is the pine. The gales may 

 blow so hard and so persistently that not a 

 limb is able to grow on the windward side ; but, 

 twisted and misshapen, the pine still lives on. 



Though the winds seem harsh to the pine, 

 they are none the less its good friends. It em- 

 ploys them as the messengers in the spreading 

 of its pollen. The pistils and stamens grow in 

 separate flowers, and the breezes transport the 

 pollen from tassel to cone and from tree to 

 tree. Each grain is provided with two tiny 

 bladders which give it buoyancy and enable it 

 to take a balloon ride. In the region where 

 the winds blow the hardest they serve the coni- 

 fers best, for there insects are scarce and the 

 trees would be exterminated if they had to de- 

 pend on such pollen-bearers. This is only an- 

 other evidence of the natural ability of the 

 pine to adjust itself to its surroundings. The 

 tree that could go on and on through number- 

 less generations evolving a conifer out of a 

 fern naturally would have adaptability enough 

 to meet the wind both as foe and friend. 



495 



