THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



99 



In New England the red cedar or juniper, while always 

 ornamental, has nothing especially striking in its pose or habit. 

 In the Hudson highlands, however, where the trees are known 

 as the sentinel cedars, they assume a tall, spiry, poplar-like 

 aspect very noticeable and picturesque. On the ruins O'f forts 

 Montgomery, Putnam, Clinton, and other revolutionary re- 

 mains they stand like sentinels indeed, guarding* now only a 

 tradition. 



In the highlands one notices all summer long, the great 

 purple-red blossoms of the flowering raspberry with its maple- 

 like leaves. This shrub is well worthy a place in gardens and 

 is, indeed O'ften seen therein. It will be seen from these 

 rambling notes that one knowing Nature, and loving her a little, 

 may pleasantly diversify his time in necessary car travel by 

 observing the various flow^ers which in gay kaleidoscope whirl 

 by him. Surely there is no reason at any time for the botanist 

 to be bored. 



^lONG the phenomena of American plant life little known 



^ to the average person is the formation of a soapy, 

 cleansing lather by some of our native plants when certain of 

 their parts are rubbed in water. Such a characteristic has 

 obvious practical value to one caught on an outing without 

 soap. 



All who have roughed it in the great Southwest, are 

 familiar with the amole or soap-root of those arid wastes — the 

 root of a species of yucca, (F. baccata), which, stripped of its 

 bark and pounded, is extensively used in lieu of soap by Mexi- 

 cans and Indians. Similarly well known to Calif ornians is the 

 bulb of another soap-plant — a rather tall, slender herb of the 



WILD SOAPS 



By Charles Francis Saunders. 



