BOUNCING BET AND HER FRIENDS. 



467 



The prettiest of the genus, however, is the autumn- 

 blooming species, Spiranthes cerniia, fig. 3. It does not 

 grow tall, but its pure white flowers are more conspicu- 

 ous in size and beauty than those of either sister species, 

 the spikes of bloom being quite large and showy, and 

 possessing the charm of perfume, which is lacking in 

 the others. It grows on moist banks in the woods, or in 

 low, grassy places, or sometimes in dry ground, if well 



shaded. This plant has not the distinctive character of 

 the genus spiranthes, and hardly seems in keeping with 

 its name ; its flower-spike is not twisted, and does not 

 suggest a "curl." It begins to bloom in early Septem- 

 ber, and remains with us until nearly all our floral favor- 

 ites have surrendered to the frost, often outlasting even 

 the golden-rods and asters, I have found it blooming 

 well into November. Frances Wilson. 



BOUNCING-BET AND HER FRIENDS. 



'TER ON GARDEN EXILES. 



'HERE is a group of vagrant 

 plants that have always ap- 

 pealed to my heart. They 

 have, for the most part, long 

 been exiled from the society of 

 really cultivated garden favor- 

 ites, although now and then 

 some loving soul, who knows 

 no fashion in her floriculture, 

 still harbors in her garden bor- 

 ders some of these flower- 

 tramps. With quiet, unpretentious persistence they man- 

 age to find root-room and to pick up a living in odd nooks 

 and waste spots of earth not claimed by other vegetation. 

 Some of them you find growing and blooming, without 

 the least protestation, outside the garden fence, where 

 they've fallen after being uprooted from the home of 

 years. "Escaped from cultivation" the botany says of 

 most of the individual species of this group of homely 

 flowers, but they are still domestic enough to follow in 

 the wake of man's steps. 



In driving over the beautiful old road that leads from 

 Cambridge to Concord, the very road which the British 

 soldiers trod on that famous nineteenth of April, 

 one finds growing by the wayside several of these old 

 friends. Indeed, it has occurred to me that, were all 

 other marks of the road swept away save these old 

 garden flowers and herbs, one might still trace out its 

 course. Tansy grows luxuriantly in many places, both 

 inside and outside the stone walls, and toad-flax, the 

 " butter-and-eggs " of our childhood, not infrequently is 

 seen. Here and there are stray beds of the old yellow 

 lilies {Hcmcrocallis fulva), and solitary tiger-lilies that, 

 of late years, are becoming wanderers. 



Scattered along this road almost as abundantly as the 

 tansy is that homely member of the pink family popu- 

 larly known as bouncing-bet. I wonder who gave name 

 to this outcast, once a cherished inmate of the garden, 

 and why. There is nothing rollicking about her air. 

 Perhaps in better days, when she had a real place of her 

 own in the flower-bed, she was wont to stray beyond her 

 limits and trespass on her neighbors' allotted space, or 

 step out into the path and there try to plant her roots 

 and seeds. ' ' Bouncing Betty, " I've now and then heard her 

 called by gentle old ladies, who abhorred nicknames, 

 even for plants, and in Salem, Massachusetts" old-maids' 



pinks" is the popular name for the well-known blossoms. 

 Looking up the history of bouncing-bet, we find from 

 the botany only that 

 it is adventive from 

 Europe and common 

 along roadsides. 

 Imagination must 

 fill up the long blank 

 between the tender 

 transp 1 a n t i n g to 

 early colonial gar- 

 dens of many hardy 

 perennials brought 

 across the Atlantic, 

 and their gradual 

 removal from neat 

 borders to any poor 

 bit of earth that 

 would support plant 

 life. 



The bouncmg-bet 

 is still kept in some 

 old - fashioned gar- 

 dens, particularly in 

 the western states, 

 where, as yet, it has 

 not taken to Bohe- 

 mian life so much 

 as in New England. 

 My grand mother 

 used to gather 

 bunches of the loose 

 corymbs of pale 

 flowers and with 

 them fill her gaily 

 painted old China 

 vases, but I have 

 never elsewhere 

 seen it given such 

 household honor, 

 though it is cousin 

 to our sweet garden 

 ks and to the va- 

 is wild and culti- 

 FiG. 3.— Spiranthes cer.nua. vated silenes. The 



See "Our Native Orchids." flowers of the sapcE- 



