288 



NATIVE PLANTS IN FIELD, FOREST AND GARDEN. 



Follow one of these alluring, well-beaten little paths 

 some spring morning far up into the hills, where the air 

 is fresh and sweet, and with bird songs all about you, 

 herd bells twinkling faintly on the heights above you, 

 and your brain cleared and eye quickened by nature's 

 elixir, you will find many a rare stray wilding among 

 flowers which you may vainly have sought dozens of 

 times before. 



Shortia galacifoHa (Fig. 7), considered a very rare 

 plant a few years ago, is now frequently found by North 

 Carolina botanists ; but it is a local plant, and there are 

 only two other localities in which I know of its having 

 been found : in Oconee county, S. C, and in Kentucky. 

 This is a plant with a history which may be new to some 

 of my readers. 



In Michaux's herbarium, at Paris, Professor Gray 

 found, in 1839, the leaves and a single fruit of an un- 

 named plant, labeled as having been collected in the 

 «' Hautes montagnes de Carolinie, " in 1788. For several 

 years he searched vainly for a living specimen of the 

 plant, but finally ventured to name and describe it from 

 the scanty material in Michaux's collection. Fresh 

 search was then made for it, and about ten years ago it 

 was rediscovered here in western Carolina, on the banks 

 of the Catawba river, where it breaks through a chain 

 of foot-hills, near the village of Marion. From new 

 specimens thus obtained, Professor Gray was enabled to 

 confirm his original conception of the plant. 



Shortia is a low perennial herb, and spreads by creep- 

 ing root stalks. The leaves are roundish, evergreen, 

 bright and glossy. In early March it bears prttty white 

 and purplish flowers resembling a primrose in shape. 



Choose a path leading downward toward the river 

 through some sheltered valley, and all along the banks 

 of the stream you will find a tangled golden glory of 

 yellow jessamine flowers — CclsLmiujn sempervnens . It 

 js an evergreen woody climber, with opposite ovate- 

 lanceolate leaves that are dark green and shining. Its 

 flowers are borne in short axillary clusters, are of beau- 

 tiful bright yellow tint, and very fragrant. The shape 

 of the corolla is an open funnel form, and it is often 

 two inches long. For miles along the river bank it will 

 creep and climb, rooting wherever a shoot drops upon 

 the ground, and twining the undergrowth so thickly to- 

 gether with its tough stems that the pioneers of this 

 little path have often been obliged to turn aside instead 

 of breaking through. After a frolic among the under- 

 brush it climbs on [upward, and its gay yellow banner 

 will float downward toward you from the tops of the 

 highest trees. 



Violets and bluets will be thick under the jessamine 

 canopy along the river, but the handsomest of our wild 

 violets is a wood flower that does not haunt the banks 

 of streams, but grows upon high and dry mountain 

 sides or in the open woods. This is ]^iola pednta, bird- 

 foot violet — so named, I suppose, because its cleft leaf 

 does somewhat resemble a bird's foot. The flower is 

 large and broad, widely open like a pansy, and has a 

 conspicuous yellow eye which adds greatly to its beauty. 



Its color varies from pale blue to deep lilac purple, and 

 it is very much prettier than many of our cultivated 

 pansy strains. 



Like a rainbow in the winter woods shine out the 

 orange-scarlet arils and crimson capsules of the Indian 

 arrow bush, strawberry bush, or Ettonymus Americanus, 



Fig. 9. Wild Calla. 



as different people have been pleased so differently call 

 it. Once in a great while you chance upon it, growing 

 beside some little brook, as it winds through dark ravine 

 or canon, flashing its bright berries down to surprise 

 the speckled mountain trout as winds sweep through the 

 gorge. 



Its leaves, dark green, thick and leathery, acute-lan- 

 ceolate and almost sessile, are so handsome that they 

 are noticeable even amid summer greens, and the square 

 twigs and stems have the same rich green tint almost 

 down to the root of the shrub. It may have been call- 

 ed Indian arrow bush with reference to the straightness 

 of these stems, and the sharpness of its serrate leaves. 

 In May and June tiny pink, four-petaled flowers spring 

 from the axils of the leaves. They are very pretty and 

 dainty in their way, but inconspicuous, and soon give 

 place to little green, pendulous, rough-warty pods, de- 

 pressed crimson when ripe, and bursting then, to show 

 three or four scarlet ariled seeds. E. atropiirpiireiis 

 and E. obovatiis are much more comnion, but not nearly 

 so handsome. 



Two native species of the genus stuartia are found 



