LIVING SOUVENIRS OF TRAVEL. 



WILD-FLOWERS TRANSPLANTED TO THE GARDEN. 



HE DESIRE for travel 

 is characteristic, and 

 when the cares of the 

 work-a-day world grow 

 oppressive, the hus- 

 band, daughter and I 

 leave them behind for 

 a few days or weeks, 

 and seek rest and rec- 

 reation among new 

 scenes. For the time 

 we are children to- 

 gether ; we ride or 

 row, walk or climb, as 

 the mood is on us ; we collect shells and curious 

 stones, and gather flowers and vines by the basket- 

 ful. Having a great love for flowers, particularly 

 for wild ones (which to our partial eyes are often 

 more charming in their simple gracefulness than 

 many of the stiff, top-heavy cultivated flowers of 

 the present fashion), we have fallen into the habit 

 of digging up every choice specimen we see growing 

 wild. Of course, cars and steamboats will not stop 

 for us, but the greater number of our little trips are 

 taken behind our matched bays, and whether we 

 are one or one hundred miles from home, there is 

 generally a sharp-pointed, short-handled hoe, to_ 

 gether with a bucket and piece of coarse coffee, 

 sacking, tucked away under the seats. Whenever 

 something choice is seen, the horses are stopped^ 

 out comes the hoe, and a little vigorous digging 

 soon brings out the plant by the roots, when it is 

 dumped with scant ceremony into the bucket. A 

 little fresh earth is thrown over the roots, and the 

 sacking is tucked over all to prevent drying out. 

 When far from home, the specimens are placed 

 close together, a little damp earth and wet moss 

 are squeezed tightly around the roots, and then a 

 heavy cloth or sacking is tied snugly around all. 

 We have cut back and thus prepared shrubbery 

 and young trees, and carried them with us three 

 weeks before reaching our journey's end, and yet 

 rarely have we lost a specimen. When our journey 

 promises to be a long one, we plant our smaller 

 specimens in tin cans or old baskets filled with soil, 

 crowding half a dozen plants or more into each can. 

 Just enough water is supplied to keep the soil moist, 

 but not wet. Plants can b© carried in this manner 



an indefinite time without injury, and sometimes 

 the more vigorous growers will actually make new 

 roots in their crowded quarters. 



To us, at least, there has been great pleasure in 

 all this. It is a singular fact that there is some 

 plant or vine peculiar to every neighborhood. We 

 have ridden hundreds of miles in the southwestern 

 country, embracing southern Missouri, Arkansas and 

 the Indian Territory. The lovely sweet gum-tree, 

 or liquidambar, the red-berried black alder, the cu- 

 rious wahoo with its beautiful scarlet fruits, the 

 bitter-sweet vine {Celastriis sca7idens), the Clematis 

 crispa, the white water-lily, the hepatica, the white 

 dog-tooth violets, the typha or cattail, and Lilium 

 Ccutadense — all beautiful plants and worthy of pres. 

 ervation — ^were found by us but once in all our 

 travels, each in its own circumscribed territory, 

 which in some cases was but a few rods in extent. 

 We found the beautiful cypripediums, or lady-slip- 

 pers, the rare Viola pedata, var. bicolor, and many 

 other fine native plants almost as limited in their 

 haunts. If we had not been prepared to secure 

 these treasures whenever we saw them, we must 

 have lost many of them entirely, as there are but 

 few firms in the United States that deal in wild- 

 flowers, and their collections are by no means com- 

 plete. There are native plants found in abundance 

 throughout the land that are well worthy of garden 

 culture, and these, of course, can be purchased of 

 those florists dealing in wild-flowers. However, in 

 one trip specimens that would be valued at many 

 dollars if procured of the florist are easily obtained, 

 and perhaps some rare ones may be found beside. 

 Some of the rarest and loveliest flowers grow in se- 

 cluded or almost inaccessible spots, in lonely valleys 

 or on the wild mountain-sides. Such flowers can 

 not be purchased of any dealer. While it is always 

 a pleasure to the flower-lover to acquire a new plant 

 or shrub, it is doubly so when it is known to be 

 something rare and uncommon. 



One of the advantages that follow the making of 

 a wild-flower collection is, that it fixes in one's mem- 

 ory the locality where each variety was found, and 

 also the general topography of the country, so that 

 each plant can bring to mind a picture of the scenes 

 once visited. I shall never forget the lonely rock- 

 ribbed valley in Arkansas where I first saw the 

 liquidambar, to which I have referred, with its 



