5i6 



NOTES ON AMERICAN WILD-FLOWERS. 



The smilacinas are attractive low, white-flowered herbs 

 of the lily family, which grow in dryish soil in copses and 

 about the borders of woods. Two species found wild in 

 our northern states deserve a place in the garden, espec- 

 ially the one sometimes known as false spikenard, or 

 Smilacina racemosa, shown in fig. 9 (page 519). This 

 is a plant bearing a cluster of flowers three or four inches 

 long, which is succeeded by bead-like almost translucent 

 claret-colored and dotted berries. Few plants are more 

 easily grown than the smilacinas. The root-stocks may 

 be removed late in summer or in fall, and in almost any 

 good soil they soon multiply into clumps. 



Perhaps everyone is familiar with the snowberry-bush. 



which is nearly always found about old gardens, holding 

 its soft snow-white berries until late in autumn. As 

 children we used to squeeze the ripe berries to hear them 

 pop ; and the memory of them recalls all that wonderful 

 panorama of childhood which of late years has become 

 so much magnified by the lens of time. Few people, 

 perhaps, are aware that this old friend is a native of 

 river-banks and ravines in our northern states. To bota- 

 nists its name is Symphot-icarpits racemosits — a bar- 

 barous name on first acquaintance, but one which im- 

 proves by familiarity. My readers will recognize a sprig 

 of the plant in the accompanying tail-piece. 



L. H. B. 



NOTES ON AMERICAN WILD-FLOWERS. 



FINE FORMS FOR PARKS AND GARDENS. 



H E VALUE of our native plants for 

 flower-gardens, parks and other orna- 

 mental grounds becomes yearly more 

 apparent to the best landscape gar- 

 deners at home and abroad. A large 

 number of flowers have been used in 

 planting the World's Columbian Ex- 

 position grounds, and still more will be planted in the 

 spring. Many native shrubs and wild flowers were 

 planted in Cadwallader Park, Trenton, N. J. , last fall, and 

 also several thousand by William Rockefeller upon his 

 new grounds at Tarrytown, N. Y. 



Many more wild flowers would undoubtedly be culti- 

 vated if flower-growers were better informed concerning 

 them. In my last paper, contributed to the January issue 

 of American Gardening, some wild plants were described 

 whose culture has already become general. Those de- 

 scribed below are quite as deserving, and though spec- 

 ially adapted to culture in parks will grow well in any 

 ordinary flower-garden having some shade. We find 

 them growing in open woods in a well-drained soil of rich 

 leaf-mold and sand. Among small pretty plants to be 

 used in a limited way, but not showy or suitable for mass- 

 ing, are the following ; 



Anemone nemoyosa (Wood-anemone). — Height six 

 inches ; flower cup-shaped, white within, purple outside, 

 about three-fourths of an inch in diameter. Blooms in 

 April and May. 



AlUum tricocciim (Wild Leek). — Eight inches high. 

 Leaves pretty in April, disappearing before the small 

 while flowers, which appear in May. 



Cornus Canadensis (Low Cornel). Five inches high, 

 with small white-bracted flower-clusters ; a miniature of 

 the flowering-dogwood. Prefers low, moist, rich soils, 

 and blooms in May. 



Panax trifolium (Three-leaved Ground-nut). — Five 

 inches high, the small white flowers borne in small dense 



Fig. 5.— DUTCHMAN'S-BREECHES (Dicenlra cucullaria). 



umbels, the pistillate quite distinct in appearance from 

 the staminate. April and May. 



Hydrastis Canadensis (Golden-seal). — ,\ well-known 

 medicinal plant, eight to ten inches high. The flowers 



