THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



103 



this plant would be worth more than ordinary. There are toj 

 many nurserymen like Wordsworth's Peter Bell, to whom 



"A primrose by the river's brim 

 A yellow primrose was to him, 

 And it was nothing more." 



Nectar Guides of Milkweed. — The flattened umbels 

 of the swamp milkwxed (Asclcpias incarnata) may seem at 

 first glance to be simply a number of flowers assembled with- 

 out design, but a more careful view will show^ considerable 

 complexity in what appears so simple. It is not mere chance 

 that causes the rose-colored petals to be reflexed at just the 

 angle they hold. Their use is to form a background upon 

 which the white stars of the corona (the 'lioods" and "horns" 

 of the books) are displayed. These latter are held just enough 

 above the petals to form a pretty and intricate pattern like a 

 piece of old lace on rose-colored velvet. The nectar, of course, 

 is secreted about the coronas which are held up so conspicu- 

 ously that any blundering insect may see. 



Winter Bouquets. — It used to be the custom in out- 

 of-the-way places to make up bouquets of the less perishable 

 plant forms of the fields and woods for the decoration of the 

 house during the winter. Various feathery grasses and sedges 

 as well as several species of cudweed (AmpJialis and Gnapha- 

 lium) were usually found in such bouquets, together with ber- 

 ries of the bittersweet (Celastnts) and the silky plumes of the 

 clematis. The only real flowers in such bouquets were the cud- 

 weeds or everlastings, the others being mere seeds or fruits. 

 The cudweeds, however, are not the only flowers adapted for 

 such purposes. There is quite a long list of garden flowers of 

 this character which are popularly called everlasting flowers. 

 In all such the parts of the flower head are so dry, even when 

 the plant is fresh, that further dessication does not change 

 them. The globe amaranths {Goiiiphrena) have flower heads 

 like large purple or white clovers. HcUchrysuin has aster-like 



