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Sierra Club Bulletin. 



A PLEA FOR THE CONSERVATION OF WILD 

 FLOWERS. 



By George T. Ruddock. 



The newspapers of April 21, 191 1, displayed an item on 

 activities of the teachers and children of the Oakland 

 public schools in stripping the hills and forests of Ala- 

 meda County of wild flowers. The children's depart- 

 ment of the public library building was used to exhibit 

 the flowers taken, the public was invited to inspect, and, 

 doubtless, expected to approve and applaud. The pub- 

 lications detailed the localities allotted to the several 

 schools and impressed the idea of competition in quanti- 

 ties to be gathered. 



It may have been the purpose of the initiators of the 

 outing to make it educational. Then why the reserved 

 space for exhibition? A few specimens of each kind col- 

 lected in the fields and properly presented by the teacher 

 would have been effective. Wild flowers do not make 

 an attractive indoor display and any technical arrange- 

 ment would be very uninteresting to the visiting public. 



Such an outing always resolves itself into competitive 

 vandalism — without design perhaps, but with that inevi- 

 table result. Field flowers cautiously plucked may serve 

 for exhibition or decorative purposes; but few persons 

 are temperate enough in their desires, or sufficiently 

 thoughtful to pick them with the best effect and least 

 violence to the fields. 



The aesthetic duty of wild flowers is to adorn the 

 fields; their especial mission is to produce seed to per- 

 petuate the species and, coincidentally, to furnish food 

 for other life forms. To destroy the seeding capacity is 

 to end the life history of the plant in the locality. Wild 



