National Geographic Society

“ The queen of Idaho's wild flower garden is by unanimous acclaim the modest syringa, Philadelphus lewisii, which is limited in its territory to the western group of States, from Montana and Wyoming to Washington and California. Its flowers matching the orange blossom in beauty, its bursting buds appearing to be fairly pin-cushions, its fragrance as delightful as the odors that sweep over Elysian fields, its leaves a delicate, soft, shimmering green, the Idaho syringa is a shrub well equipped to awaken enthusiasm in every lover of flowers. ”

“ Kentucky has made the trumpet vine her State flower, and few States can boast of such a brilliant member of the sisterhood of emblematic blossoms. Growing on a vine that has as much vitality as a Lexington thoroughbred and as much resourcefulness in holding its own in the gruelling free-for-all race for existence as any star of the turf, the trumpet flower is well beloved by those who live within the Blue Grass State and by a host who enjoy no such fortune. ”

“ The apple blossom shares with the carnation the distinction of being the only two flowers in Nature's garden that have won two legislatures to their standards in the “battle of the buds” for popular affection. While Ohio and Indiana have pledged legislative fealty to the carnation, Arkansas and Michigan have cast their fortunes with the apple blossom.
There are a few commonwealths which, while agreeing that a thing of beauty is a joy forever, are yet utilitarian enough to hold that when a delight to the eye ripens into a joy to the palate it is to be prized above all other forms of loveliness. ”

“ When a pollen grain flies that way and gets stuck in this little bed of jelly, the scale closes up so as to be water—and even air—tight. Some of the pine species even varnish the openings so as to make them safe. Within this cozy chamber the miracle of life is consummated, and ere long there is a small seed, with its wing attached, mature and awaiting the day when the friendly wind will carry it to where it can plant itself and grow up into a big tree. ”

“ Who that has wandered through a full-blown peach orchard, inhaling the fragrance of a million buds and feasting the eye upon acres of heavenly pink, can fail to applaud Delaware's choice of the peach blossom as her State flower.
A deep claim has the peach upon national admiration as well as upon local affection, for it ranks second among all the inhabitants of the American orchard in the money value of its annual crop of fruit. ”

“ America's debt to de Grasse It can truly be said that no single man risked nor did more for the United States than de Grasse, the single one of the leaders to whom no memorial has been dedicated.
The news spread like wild-fire; the camp was merry with songs and shouts; in Philadelphia the joy was indescribable; crowds pressed before the house of La Luzerne, cheering him and his country, while in the streets impromptu orators, standing on chairs, delivered mock funeral orations on the Earl of Cornwallis. ”

“ An alliance which forbade conquest This answer to “Messieurs les Sauvages” is an enlightening one; it shows what was the latent force that surmounted all obstacles and caused the French nation to stand as a whole, from beginning to end, in favor of the Americans, to applaud a treaty of alliance which, while entailing the gravest risks, forbade us all conquest, and to rejoice enthusiastically at a peace which after a victorious war added nothing to our possessions. This force was the increasing passion among the French for precisely “that natural liberty which God has conferred on man.” ”

“ Prolific beyond words is this enterprising blossom. It multiplies by wholesale and covers the green turf of April with a flowery snow in June. Ten thousand thousand city folk go out and gather and admire, but ten thousand thousand farmer folk, knowing that it means poor quality and less quantity in hay and pasture, cannot understand the urban enthusiasm for a blossom that lowers production and increases the cost of living.
But with all its “weedy rôle” in the eyes of the farmer, there is beauty in the field daisy and as much sentiment. ”

“ Who that has studied the enthusiasm with which that frail and filmy creature, the ruby-throated humming-bird, flits from flower to flower of the trumpet vine, burying its head and shoulders deep in the enveloping petals as it strives to drain the last drop from the floral honey cup, or who that has observed closely the constant effort of the trumpet flower to captivate this capricious, swift-winged beauty can doubt the community of interest between them. ”

“ The bee that creeps down into the flower for a sip of nectar releases a tiny spring, like a mouse entering a trap. The released anther flies up and dusts its pollen on the hairy body of the insect. Now, if you take this pollen and put it under a good microscope, you will see that each grain is in reality a cluster of four tiny balls resembling oranges. Indeed, in passing it may be observed that each species of plant seems to possess some special whim in the shape of its pollen, with its own peculiar devices of exterior decoration and structural form. ”

“ There is nothing about the simple loveliness of the wild rose to suggest that she is a queen who has never come into her own; yet, as the original from which all the reigning beauties of the rose-fancier's garden and the florist's window have been developed, royal honors are her due. She resembles rather a little flower princess too fragile to brave the dangers of rocky hillsides or meadows close to busy highways. However, Nature has provided this seeming innocent with arms for protection and wiles for perpetuation. ”

“ The child who has not plucked the tiny florets of the clover blossom and tasted their nectar is to be placed in the same category as the girl who has not taken a daisy and plucked the petals to the tune of “He loves me, he loves me not,” for neither has known the simple joys of the field.
When James Whitcomb Riley asked what the lily and all the rest of the flowers were to a man who in babyhood knew the sweet clover blossom, it was not that he loved the lily less, but that he loved the clover more. ”

“ But whether it be with the eyes of the farmer that you see the daisy, beholding only its persistent invasion of his domains, or whether with the eye of the beauty lover who is called by admiration and not to battle, or whether with the eye of the sentimental who love it for the fortunes it has told, the daisy is by all awarded the honor of being an alien that has no hyphen in its disposition. ”

“ Those who have not been privileged to visit an orangery and there taste the nature-ripened fruit in all its golden lusciousness cannot know fully how delicious an orange may be. The orange that goes to market and must wait weeks before it can get out of the hands of the retailer and into those of the consumer is packed before it is ripe, and few fruits gathered unripe can ever be as delicious as those which have hung on the spit of the twig and toasted to a proper flavor before the sun. ”

“ To the daisy a home in the woods is like an East Side tenement to one who has lived on Fifth avenue. It can never content itself in the shade and the solitude of the forest. The meadow, the pasture, the hay field, the roadside—these are places where it likes to grow; and if it is to grow there it must be well prepared to fight a battle with the farmer. ”

“ There are many plants that are poisonous, a quality developed as a weapon of defense. And what would we do without our plant poisons? Opium, which in spite of its abuses is a boon to humanity, is merely the self-defense of the poppy turned to the service of man. The laurel, too, belongs to the class of poison-producers. If let alone it drapes the mountainside with lacy bloom, and never hurts any creature that treats it with respect; but woe betide the one that dares to eat it.
The mountain laurel is distinctly an Eastern plant. ”

“ Who that has seen loved ones given in marriage, with the orange blossoms lending the touch of their beauty to the bride, can help but sympathize with the sentiments of Florida's legislators when they enacted into law the State's affection for the flower of its favorite fruit? And while the orange blossom is admired and honored by its association with the bridal hour, the fruit is known wherever men and women who love good things to eat foregather. ”

“ It is fitting that such a genuinely American Commonwealth as Kansas should choose a genuinely American flower to represent it at home and abroad. And the sunflower is such, for the Old World's eyes never fell upon it until the days when the exploration of the New World began. ”

“ In the days of Queen Elizabeth the goldenrod had a great reputation for healing wounds and was imported in considerable quantities and sold in the London markets in powder form at half a crown a pound. In range the goldenrod covers the continent with its cloth of gold. North, south, east, west, on mountain and by sea, in dry field and in wet swamp, it flourishes in its season and warms every landscape with its rich color. ”

“ A true artist in selecting its background, the rhododendron not only surrounds its exquisite blossoms with smooth, rich green leaves which set them off effectively, but also makes its home commonly on moist, forested mountainsides, where the gloomy greens and browns of dark rocks and lofty trees contrast with its dainty pink and white ruffles.
The rhododendrons growing in Washington, or among the redwoods of California, or clothing the slopes of the Alleghenies with impenetrable thickets and in early summer glorifying them with bloom, are worth going far to see. ”

“ The acquisition of a dignified Latin name seems to have been the first forward step in its career; from the simple ornament of the primeval wilderness and friend of the Indian, this blushing beauty has risen to the magnificent position of chosen flower of Montana, the Treasure State, and has given its English name—bitter root—to a mountain range, a river, and to the famous Bitter Root Valley.
Bitter Root Valley, the depression which separates the Bitter Root Mountains from the Rockies for a distance of about 105 miles, long before the white man penetrated the great West, was a favored spot. ”

“ It is impossible not to form wishes for that people to reach the utmost prosperity it is capable of. That people is the hope of mankind. It must show to the world by its example that men can be free and tranquil, and can do without the chains that tyrants and cheats of all garb have tried to lay on them under pretense of public good. It must give the example of political liberty, religious liberty, commercial and industrial liberty. ”

“ The sunflower, along with the goldenrod, the black-eyed susan, the asters, and many others, is a member of the composite family, the Napoleons of finance and industry in the flower world. If there were politics and politicians among the flowers, there would be a lively campaign against the “trusts,” for the composites seem bent upon a monopoly of the nectar business. They are efficiency experts, knowing how to crowd hundreds of blossoms into a single head, with brilliant ray flowers at the edge to attract their insect customers. ”

“ Its leaves are so furry, the result of its unconscious efforts to protect itself from pilfering ants and other creeping insects, that the children of South Dakota have come to call it the “gosling plant.” If its lovely flowers gladden the hills while ungenial winter wanes, its fruiting period also has beauty to offer. A head of silky seedlets with their dainty plumes leads many people to call it the ground clematis.
The stalk of the anemone lengthens considerably after the plant flowers. Those familiar with the garden varieties have noticed how it grows longer even after it has been cut. ”

“ Since ants can never render it any pollen-bearing service, the mountain laurel has set traps to protect its nectar from their ravages. It mounts its flowers on hairy stems and covers the hairs with a sticky substance, so that if Mr. Ant does not heed the warnings of the bristles that no trespassing will be allowed he promptly finds himself wading through a field of glue that pinions his feet until he dies an ignominious death as a would-be thief.
No friend of the stock-raiser is the mountain laurel. ”

“ The fight was not for recompense, but for liberty, and Franklin could write to Congress that the treaty of commerce was one to which all the rest of the world, in accordance with France's own wishes, was free to accede, when it chose, on the same footing as herself, England included.
This was so peculiar that many had doubts; John Adams never lost his; even Washington himself had some, and when plans were submitted to him for an action in Canada he wondered, as he wrote, whether there was not in them “more than the disinterested zeal of allies.” ”

“ In less than a century and a half New York has passed from the ten thousand inhabitants it possessed under Clinton to the five million and more of today. Philadelphia, once the chief city, “an immense town,” Closen had called it, has now ten times more houses than it had citizens.
Partly owing again to France ceding, unasked, the whole territory of Louisiana in 1803, the frontier of this country, which the upper Hudson formerly divided in its center, has been pushed back to the Pacific; the three million Americans of Washington and Rochambeau have become the one hundred million of today. ”

“ William Channing, father of the philanthropist, confides to the same Ezra Stiles, in a letter of August 6, 1780, his delighted surprise: “The French are a fine body of men and appear to be well officered. Neither the officers nor men are the effeminate beings we were heretofore taught to believe them. They are as large and likely men as can be produced by any nation.” So much for the brittle, queer-shaped mechanisms.
With the French officers in the West Indies, most of them former companions in arms and personal friends, Rochambeau, as soon as he had landed, began to correspond. ”

“ However, it has a right to be called a blue-stocking among our flowers, for it is one of those favored individuals of the plant world that enrich the soil as they grow. Man has been long ages learning how to extract nitrogen, the most expensive of all fertilizing elements, from the air; but the clover learned that secret untold centuries ago, and instead of levying heavy tribute on the nitrogen supply of the ground, it draws its supplies from the air, uses what it can, and presents the remainder to the land with its compliments. ”