608 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



where they unpack and start life again. Others 

 tie sailor knots or make elastic springs. When 

 the seeds are ripe, these stretch like a rubber 

 hand, break, and catapult the seeds like a pea- 

 shooter. 



Still others put hooks in their seeds, so that 

 they can send them far and near by stealing 

 rides on animals, such as the cockle bur. And 

 then there are others that were perpetuating 

 themselves by their mastery of the principles 

 of the parachute countless generations before 

 man dreamed of a balloon. 



Among these latter is the fireweed. It has 

 a slender, curved, violet-tinted pod in which 

 are nested numerous seeds, each attached to a 

 tuft of fluffy, white, silky thread. When the 

 seeds are ripe, the pod bursts open, and as the 

 winds come along they start the little seed- 

 laden parachutes a-sailing through the air to 

 destinations whose distance is limited only by 

 the velocity and the duration of the wind. 



And so it sends its children far and wide, 

 hoping that each one may land in some hos- 

 pitable spot, ready with the advent of another 

 summer to become, in its turn, the founder of 

 other colonies. 



NEW ENGLAND ASTER (Aster novae- 

 angliae L.) 



(See page 605) 



Like its cousin the thistle, and like the daisy 

 and the sunflower, the aster is one of the most 

 civilized of flower peoples; so well have they 

 adapted themselves to the necessity of varying 

 environment that they have been able to travel 

 around the earth and to make themselves at 

 home wherever they go. 



They ask odds of nobody. Through count- 

 less generations they studied the best methods 

 of insuring their survival against the fiercest 

 competition, and finally developed the idea of 

 the composite flower. It was like a Fort}'- 

 niner striking a bonanza mine ! And so we 

 find them wholly self-reliant, self-sufficient, 

 and ready to fight all comers for their right to 

 a place in the sum of existence. 



When the}- started out they were like the 

 grass — dependent upon the wind to carry their 

 pollen; but as they journeyed down through 

 the ages -the}- gradually discovered that the 

 wind was not always a trustworthy messenger. 

 The more progressive among them decided to 

 employ insects instead of breezes as their pol- 

 len-bearers. 



Their first "help wanted" advertisements 

 were a few dainty flower petals, but this inno- 

 vation was so successful that they began to do 

 a land-office business. They found that myriad 

 armies of insects were ready to be mustered 

 into their service. 



So successful indeed was the experiment that 

 they decided to extend their business still fur- 

 ther, and to employ in their appeal for recruits 

 display ads in the shape of great groups of 

 flowers instead of want ads in the shape of 

 isolated blossoms. 



And their second adventure was as success- 



ful as the first. They offered high wages in 

 easily reached and abundant nectar of the best 

 quality, with the result that they were able to 

 command the services of the most reliable of 

 the messengers of all insectdom. 



Their brands of nectar were so well adver- 

 tised and maintained such a high standard of 

 purity that their big page ads drew vast hordes 

 of winged Mercuries, and, having become the 

 biggest users of printers' ink in flower land, 

 their respective establishments grew and grew 

 until their names became household words' in 

 insectdom. 



Today they are the captains of industry, the 

 Napoleons of finance, and the people with a 

 vision of flower land. The daisy army trans- 

 forms millions of acres into white and gold in 

 summer, while in autumn the aster and golden- 

 rod proclaim their triumph through millions of 

 acres of yellow and blue. 



There are about 120 species of asters in the 

 United States. The New England aster, the 

 subject of this sketch, is one of these. It oc- 

 curs most frequently in New England, as its 

 name implies ; but it has been extending its 

 territorial possessions somewhat, and now oc- 

 curs in the maritime provinces of Canada and 

 as_ far south as the Gulf of Mexico. Its flow- 

 ering season is from August to October, and 

 its favorite habitat swamps, moist fields, and 

 roadsides. 



WILD YELLOW OR RED PLUM 

 (Prunus americana Marshall) 



(See page 606) 



With a flower as fair as any that blooms, 

 even though it is but a small blossom, and fruit 

 that, with its rare transparent coloring, is the 

 soul of beauty, the wild yellow or red plum 

 has a host of friends who rate it high in the 

 order of things delightful to the eye. 



This plum is a genuine American, having 

 dwelt here even before the legendary Norse- 

 men came to these shores. And it is of such 

 sturdy stock that it has been widely used to 

 give new life and to infuse new hardiness into 

 the effete plums that have come to us on the 

 wings of commerce from Europe. 



Since the scientists have become masters of 

 the art of cross-breeding trees and plants, they 

 have learned to couple the hardy, self-reliant, 

 disease-resisting traits of the wild species with 

 the improved fruit-producing traits of the 

 tame varieties that have come to it through 

 centuries of selection. In that way they have 

 given us a long list of new and improved 

 plants. 



They go to the desert for clovers to cross 

 with our ordinary stock and give us drought- 

 resisting pastures ; they go to Peru for "new 

 blood" for our potatoes, and we get hardier 

 varieties than we had before; they take the 

 hardy Japanese bitter orange and cross it with 

 the domesticated orange and get a wider area 

 for its cultivation. 



And so the wild plum has been made to do 

 duty in the development of a dozen or more 



