400 JOUKNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



presently to consider possible remedies, I would ask you to remember that 

 the only plants that appeal to the trade-collector are those that can be 

 obtained readily in large quantities and are showy, and, if uprooted, easily 

 transplanted. Ferns and Primroses best answer to this description, Daffodils, 

 Fritillaries, Lilies-of- the- valley, and Bulrushes being more commonly only 

 gathered. Nevertheless such a collector may not always work on a large 

 scale and may yet do much damage, as in the case of one of whom Mr. 

 J. G. Baker informed me the other day, who, happening upon a plant of 

 Cypripedium Calceolus — one of the rarest and most beautiful of British 

 Orchids — dug it up and sold it to a florist for half-a-crown as a new kind 

 of Calceolaria ! 



The complaints from the United States are similar to our own. Here, 

 too, it is the neighbourhood of the large towns that suffers most, and a 

 limited number of popular showy species that are most in danger. The 

 Maidenhair Fern has been exterminated from several stations near New 

 York by dealers,* the Christmas Fern (Polystichum acrosticho'ides) is said 

 to be ruthlessly consumed by florists, f whilst in Connecticut the Hartford 

 or Climbing Fern (Lygodium) was in such danger of immediate extermina- 

 tion that a law has been passed for its protection.? The glossy leaves of 

 Galax aphylla, now known as "Galaxy," from the South Alleghanies, 

 have become fashionable for funeral wreaths : they are picked by the 

 crateful, and are becoming more expensive, only too certainly a sign of 

 diminished supply.§ The fringed Gentians from the Berkshire hills and 

 their allies the Sabbatias, the favourites of the streets of Boston and 

 Plymouth, are generally uprooted, but seldom successfully transplanted. 

 Among the beautiful shrubs of the Heath family, not only are the 

 native Rhododendron and Azalea stripped of their blossoms for the 

 supply of Philadelphia, but the lovely evergreen Mountain Laurel 

 (Kalmia) loses both flowers and foliage, like our own Guelder Rose {Vi- 

 burnum Opulus), which would seem to be similarly imperilled. Last, but 

 not least, the Trailing Arbutus or Mayflower (Epigcea repens), which 

 should be endeared to every New Englander, and which cannot be trans- 

 planted with success, has been so extensively uprooted that its delicate 

 pink and white bells have disappeared frcm many parts of New York.|| 

 I mention these American complaints because in several respects the 

 Americans, though in a new and comparatively thinly populated country, 

 are setting us examples of how to protect our indigenous flora from such 

 threatened destruction. 



In turning to the depredations wrought by children, though I do not 

 want to minimise them, 1 wish to remove several misconceptions. Children 

 who go into the country in large parties do not as a rule root up plants, 

 neither do they search out rarities, and they should at least be sufficiently 

 under control to prevent their trespassing or to enforce their obedience to 

 any conspicuous notice. No one wishes to prevent the child, whether 

 village resident or visitor from town, picking flowers. We may well 



* Mrs. E. G. Britton, loc. cit. 

 f Mary Perle Anderson, loc. cit. 



X Mrs. E. Britton, " Vanishing Wild Flowers," Torreija, vol. i. (1901), p. 89 ; and 

 David S. George, The Plant World, vol. vi. (1903), p. 1(50. 

 § Mrs. E. G. Britton, " Vanishing Wild Flowers," p. 88. 

 II New York Tribune, May 5, 1901, quoted by Mrs. Britton. 



