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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



go by and to cheer the passing throng with its 

 brilliant orange-red flowers, its green leaves, 

 and red stalk. 



Nor is the butterfly-weed stingy with its 

 favors, for June finds it decking itself with its 

 splendid array of flowers ; and only in Septem- 

 ber does it doff its georgeous colors. 



The butterfly-weed sweeps in stately gran- 

 deur from Maine and Ontario to Arizona and 

 the Gulf of Mexico. 



Weed it may be to us, but sweetest inhabitant 

 of nature's flower garden it is to the myriads 

 of butterflies, for whom it is indeed a "land 

 flowing with milk and honey." The high and 

 the low, the rich and the poor, the great and 

 the small — prince, noble, and pauper alike — 

 come to its table. Here is the exquisite half- 

 moon-winged swallow-tail, touching elbows, as 

 it were, with the scrubby little cabbage butter- 

 fly, and the elegantly attired spice-bush swal- 

 low-tail sipping from a cup next to the one 

 which the little old mud-puddle "yaller" butter- 

 fly is draining. 



This flower, like its kinsfolk of the milk- 

 weed family, has a marvelous mechanism for 

 forcing its guests to pay well for their board. 



The alighting place where these animated 

 aeros effect their landings is decidedly smooth 

 and slippery, and the arriving guest finds him- 

 self on a surface which makes a newly waxed 

 ball-room floor seem like a stony pathway in 

 comparison. As he does a combination of the 

 tango, the fox trot, and the jig trying to find 

 a stable footing, one foot, or mayhap two, slips 

 into a little slot, which holds fast. While wrig- 

 gling around to get loose, his foot slips down 

 farther into the slot. A sharp jerk releases the 

 foot, if the insect is strong enough, but not 

 until a little pair of pollen saddle-bags has been 

 bound to it. Bumblebees sometimes get away 

 from a plant with half a dozen of these little 

 saddle-bags hanging" to their legs. 



At the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, 

 in 1876, a bed of beautiful flowers brought over 

 from Holland won the admiration of many 

 thousands of people ; and yet they were only a 

 Dutch edition of our own butterfly-weed. 



The Indians used the butterfly-weed's root in 

 treating pleurisy, and made a crude sugar from 

 its flowers. They used the young seed pods in 

 the cooking of buffalo meat much as we might 

 use green peppers with chicken or hash. 



JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT (Arisaema tri- 

 phyllum (L.) Torr.) 



(See page 603) 



Jack-in-the-pulpit is one of the denizens of 

 flowerland that seldom ventures out of the for- 

 est. It loves wet, marshy ground, blossoms 

 from April to June, and claims as its own all 

 of that vast territory from Nova Scotia west- 

 ward to Minnesota and southward to the Gulf 

 of Mexico. 



Jack is a member of a numerous family, 

 among its relations being the stately calla lily, 

 loved by all who appreciate beauty and grace. 

 and that black sheep of flowerland, the skunk 

 cabbage. 



What country boy has not been tempted into 

 tasting of "Indian turnip root," to his sorrow 

 and to the great burning of his mouth? And 

 why should he not suffer, for that root which 

 has been ruthlessly torn up represents the 

 hard-earned savings of Jack-in-the-pulpit. 

 During the happy days of the summer-time 

 Jack labors hard to pay the premium on his 

 life insurance, so that in the spring to follow, 

 when he is dead and gone, his heirs may rise 

 up possessed of a "grub-stake" that will prov- 

 ender them until they can win their own place 

 in the world. Many plants thus insure their 

 lives in behalf of their posterity, giving every 

 bit of their surplus income over to a root-stock 

 fund for their children. 



Jack-in-the-pulpit got his name through the 

 resemblance of the little hooded house of green 

 which he builds to the old-time pulpits, which 

 had a sort of hood over them. 



He received his name of "Indian turnip root" 

 through the fact that the Indians habitually 

 raided his root-stock insurance, and, boiling the 

 "bite" out of it, made of it what they consid- 

 ered a delectable dish. 



Another cousin of Jack's, as stated before, is 

 the skunk cabbage, which has the painful habit 

 of smelling bad; and yet there is method in 

 its madness, for it is an insectivorous flower. 

 It tries to simulate the odor of decaying meat 

 in order that all of the flies, the big blue-bottle 

 ones and all their neighbors, may be attracted 

 its way. As soon as it gets them, it lays hold 

 of them, and makes a feast of them instead of 

 for them. It is strange that a family with such 

 a noble head as the calla lily could possess a 

 sheep so black as the skunk cabbage, and it is 

 equally strange that the floral procession of the 

 year should be headed by this evil-smelling 

 representative of the flowery kingdom. 



Jack-in-the-pulpit is gradually copying the 

 ways of the most disreputable member of his 

 family, instead of trying to live up to the beau- 

 tiful reputation of his fair cousin the calla. 

 He has so arranged his pulpit that once a tiny 

 fly or ant or bee gets in, it has mightly little 

 chance to escape. A bear was never more 

 firmly held by the jaws of a big steel trap than 

 are the bees in the little green trap which Jack 

 sets. 



YARROW OR MILFOIL (Achillea mille- 

 folium L.) 



(See page 604) 



The yarrow is a member of the thistle fam- 

 ily, though it defends itself from the attacks 

 of grazing animals by its odor rather than by 

 pricking spines. It is true that it has incipient 

 spines in the shape of bristly hairs, but these 

 are not stiff enough to do any damage. 



Yarrow has as many different names as a 

 modern Raffles. Some call it milfoil, crediting 

 it with having a thousand leaves, just as rural 

 folk credit a centipede with being a thousand- 

 leg worm. Others call it "old man's pepper," 

 by reason of its spicy aroma, and others nose- 

 bleed, by reason of its nosebleed-producing 

 qualities. Still others call it soldierwort, by 





