THE BITTERROOT 



By S. I. Anthon. 



"y^/f ANY of us from the Old World remember with mingled 

 jo}^ and sadness the storied flowers of our early play- 

 ground. What a wealth of tales, legends, and bits of informa- 

 tion about our commoner flowers were the heritage of every 

 child. Instinctively we learned why the corn-flower was so 

 blue and how the milkweed sent its children far off to explore 

 the mighty world. So, too, we learned about the little boy 

 who loved the two dainty bells of the twinflower so much that 

 to this day when the gentle breeze flutters among them they nod 

 their heads, whispering ''Linnea, Linnea" in memory. What 

 Englishman does not love his little daisy the more for its wealth 

 of association in song and story? What Frenchman does not 

 square his shoulders at the mere thought oi the lilies of France 

 being borne to victory? How the Irish exalt the humble sham- 

 rock and ascribe wonderful qualities to it ! 



Here in this new and cruder land we are so oppressed by 

 the great amount of cold fact to be learned that we have had 

 no time or thought to work out beautiful flower tales. We are 

 even in danger of forgetting that every flower has a story value 

 as well as a frigidly scientific one, and so we lose a host of 

 spreading interests. It is in the attempt not to lose it alto- 

 gether that I have tried to find, among others, the story that 

 goes with the bitterroot, one of our common western flowers. 



The bitterroot is one of those flowers that startle us by 

 their sudden appearance in the spring. Over all our dry, loose 

 soil in Eastern Washington, Montana, and Idaho the flowers 



