396 
SOME GENERAL PLANT PROBLEMS 
Figure 362 . — Pink Lady-slippers. 
One of the disappearing orchids. In many places incessant picking has 
exterminated it. It is doomed to extermination unless the boys and girls 
start a crusade to save it from the older men and women who are old- 
fashioned in their way of appreciating wild flowers. Orchids are perennials 
but they need their leaves to store up food for next year’s blossoms and seeds. 
Naturally they fruit every year, and the older plants are surrounded by little 
groups of seedlings, which is nature’s way of stocking the woods with these 
delightful flowers. Every one that is picked and brought in tends to make 
the woodland barren and so much less attractive. Spare the wild flowers! 
are coming more and more to enjoy leaving them where 
they grow instead of picking them for decorating their 
homes, where they last for only a few hours at best. 
Photographing wild flowers where they are found growing 
is a form of recreation that is becoming popular. 
