PARK AND CEMETERY. 
89 
lost in contemplation. I have no doubt the follow- 
ing lines, the authorship of which I have forgotten, 
well expressed their felings, as it has done that of 
thousands of others. 
If I had known thou couldst have died, 
I might not weep for thee ; 
But I forgot when by thy side 
That thou couldst mortal be. 
It never through my mind had passed 
That the time would e’er be o’er, 
When I on you should look my last 
And thou should’st smile no more. 
Joseph Meehan. 
MICHIGAN’S EARLY WILD FLOWERS. 
It is a curious fact that while very many American 
flowers are equal or superior to foreign species for many 
departments of ornamental gardening, particularly for 
planting in parks, much less is known about them and 
their habits than is known concerning foreign species. 
This is particularly true regarding the class of native or- 
namentals of which I now write. Each florist well knows 
that the Hyacinth, Tulip, Crocus, Narcissus, Fritellaria, 
etc., are of similar habit with regard to season of 
growth and flowering, being in this respect very unlike 
most plants. Most herbaceous perennials of the tem- 
perate zones start into growth in the spring, flower and 
perfect seed later, die down in autumn and rest during 
the winter, often until late spring. Not so with this 
class of plants. They are dormant during summer, start 
into growth below surface of ground late in autumn, in 
some cases growing all winter, and as soon as winter’s 
frosts and snows go, shoot up, and flower very early, 
many of them being the earliest spring flowers. Exper- 
ience teaches that as a rule, p'ants are most safely hand- 
led when dormant, therefore it is evident that the only 
proper time for handling these plants is in summer, af- 
ter the ripening of the foliage and fruit and maturing of 
the bulbs or tubers, and before growth starts again in 
autumn. No grower of spring flowering bulbous or 
tuberous plants thinks of taking them up in the spring 
when in full foliage, but he waits until the flowering 
season is over and the bulbs or tubers have become 
fully matured, digs them when the leaves begin to turn 
yellow and decay, and issues a catalogue of Bulbs and 
Tuberous plants for fall planting. This is the univer- 
sal custom with regard to foreign early flowering bulb- 
ous and tuberous plants, and yet very few recognize the 
fact that our American early flowering bulbous and tuber- 
ous flowers require exactly the same treatment, but con- 
stantly undertake to procure and plant them out of sea- 
son, and then wonder why their attempt to grow them 
fails. 
Now many of our American ornamentals are 
just as worthy of attention as are foreign ones, and 
some fill a place in ornamental gardening that foreign 
species cannot fill. Many are very useful for the flower 
garden, park, cut flowers or forcing. Among these 
our early blooming bulbs and tubers are very val- 
uable. These plants with other low-growing early 
blooming perennials clothe our Michigan forests with 
rare beauty. This spring they have been particularly 
beautiful. The writer is located at Rochester, Michi- 
gan, upon the eastern slope of a range of hills which 
extends from Northern Indiana to near the ‘ Tip of 
the Thumb” - point of Huron Peninsula, Lower Mich- 
igan, being shaped like a left-hand mitten — some T2 
miles from the summit of the ridge, and 3 miles from 
the plains at its base; a region remarkable for its flora, 
three distinct botanical regions being within 30 miles, as 
well as the characteristic flora of the highlands and 
plains, forest and swamp, river and lake, for the 
surface is exceedingly varied, often presenting land- 
scapes surpassing any park. In this region we find 
large forests with the ground in early spring literally 
covered with early flowers, bulbous and tuberous, as 
well as vast numbers of other low perennials such as 
the Tiarella cordifolia, Hepatica trilobat, H. acuteloba, 
10 beantiful species of Violets, Ranunculus fascicularis, 
R. septentrionalis and its large trailing form, Phlox 
subulata, P. nivarisata, P. horlosa, L. Sithospermum 
canescans, G. hista, etc. Large forests are great 
flower and fern gardens beautiful beyond description. 
We notice that the flowers we have mentioned except 
perhaps Trilliums and a few others, usually grow in 
large masses or natural flower beds of irregular outline, 
densely covering the ground where they grow. This is 
a good hint for the landscape gardener, for certainly 
these masses of a certain kind, distinct by itself, yet in 
contact with masses of other species, greatly increases 
the ornamental effect of each species, for single plants 
of these small ornamentals, handsome as they are, would 
produce but little ornamental effect. Again we see their 
usefulness for planting about clumps of shrubbery or tall- 
er plants, particularly of those that flower later. If 
such planting was practiced in many of our city parks, 
— I notice this lack particularly in Belle Isle park, De- 
troit, Mich., — the beauty of these parks would be 
greatly increased, and it would also serve to preserve 
the health of the shrubbery by covering the bare ground 
at its roots, thus retarding evaporation. Belle Isle Park 
is a very beautiful park indeed, yet many forests in the 
hills 2.0 to 40 miles northeast show far greater beauty in 
early spring, although many wild flowers grow natur- 
ally at the upper end of this Island park. If quantities 
of low native perennials, especially those with enduring 
foliage and particularly^early bulbous and tuberous plants 
like Dicentras, Cardamine purpurea, Dentarias, Tril- 
liums, Isophyrum biternatum, Claytonia, Virginica, etc., 
the beauty of the park would be vastly increased. But 
I suppose the park commissioners have never visited 
any of our upland forests, nor discovered the value of 
low plants as the conservers of moisture for shrubbery 
and trees. 
Green grass is pretty, but too much of it, and noth- 
ing else about the roots of trees and shrubbery, be- 
comes very monotonous and uninteresting, besides low 
shrubs and herbaceous plants in a forest are very essen- 
tial for the preservation of the health of forest trees, 
particularly in the time of severe drouth. No forest 
ever recovers from the injury sustained by its being 
turned into a sheep pasture. 
