Neltje Blanchan

“ So much comes off on his back that after visiting a flower or two he becomes annoyed; clings to a leaf with his fore legs while he thoroughly brushes his back and wings with his middle and hind pairs, and then collects the sticky grains into a wad on his feet which he presently kicks off with disgust to the ground. Examine a jewel-weed blossom to see that the clumsy bumblebee's pollen-laden back is not so likely to come in contact with the short five-parted stigma concealed beneath the stamens, as a hummingbird's slender bill that is thrust obliquely into the spur while he hovers above. ”

“ So much cross-fertilized seed as the plant now produces and scatters through the grain fields may well fill the farmer's prosaic mind with despair. To him there is no glory in the scarlet of the poppy comparable with the glitter of a silver dollar; no charm in the heavenly blue of the corn-flower, that likewise preys upon the fertility of his soil; the vivid flecks of color with which the cockle lights up his fields mean only loss of productiveness in the earth that would yield him greater profit without them. ”

“ Nowadays we are satisfied merely to admire the feathery masses of lace-like foliage formed by young plants, to whiff the wholesome, nutty, autumnal odor of its flowers, or to wonder at the marvelous scheme it employs to overrun the earth.
Like the daisy, each small flower in a cluster, as symmetrically arranged as brain coral, is made up of a large number of minute but perfect florets, suited to attract insects by making a better show than each could do alone, and by offering them accessible feeding places close together, where they may feast with minimum loss of time. ”

“ Trailing its spreading branches over sandy ground, rocky hillsides and steeps until it sometimes forms luxuriant mats, it closely resembles its cousin the arbutus in its manner of growth, and has been mistaken for it by at least one poet. But its tiny, rounded, urn-shaped flowers, which come in May and June, are white, not salver form and pink; the entire plant is not rusty-hairy; the dark little leathery evergreen leaves are spatulate, and, moreover, it bears small but abundant clusters of round, berry-like fruit, an attainment the arbutus still struggles for, but cannot yet reach. ”

“ To think that a plant related on one side to many of the loveliest flowers in Nature's garden- - the azaleas, laurels, rhododendrons, and the bonny heather - and on the other side to the modest but no less charming wintergreen tribe, should have fallen from grace to such a depth! Its scientific name, meaning a flower once turned, describes it during only a part of its career. When the minute, innumerable seeds begin to form, it proudly raises its head erect, as if conscious that it had performed the one righteous act of its life. ”

“ It blooms from June to August, and sparingly again in autumn. When daylight begins to fade, these long, slender-tubed buds expand to welcome their chosen benefactors, the sphinx moths, wooing them with fragrance so especially strong and sweet at this time that, long after dark, guests may be guided from afar by it alone, and entertaining them with copious draughts of deeply hidden nectar, which their long tongues alone may drain. Poised above the blossoms, they sip without pause of their whirring wings, and it is not strange that many people mistake them in the half light for hummingbirds. ”

“ Off he flies to another Andromeda blossom, and leaves some of the dust with which he is powdered on the sticky stigma that impedes his entrance, before precipitating a fresh shower as he sips another reward. The straight column-like pistil, stigmatic on its tip only, allows the flower's own pollen to slide harmlessly down its sides. How exquisite are the most minute adjustments of floral mechanism! Is it possible for one to remain an agnostic after the evidences even the flowers show us of infinite wisdom and love? ”

“ Gorgeous, glowing scarlet heads of bee balm arrest the dullest eye, bracts and upper leaves often taking on blood-red color, too, as if it had dripped from the lacerated flowers. Where their vivid doubles are reflected in a shadowy mountain stream, not even the cardinal flower is more strikingly beautiful. Thrifty clumps transplanted from Nature's garden will spread about ours and add a splendor like the flowers of salvia, next of kin, if only the roots get a frequent soaking. ”

“ The LOW or DWARF CORNEL, or BUNCHBERRY (C. canadensus) whose scaly stem does its best to attain a height of nine inches, bears a whorl of from four to six oval, pointed, smooth leaves at the summit. From the midst of this whorl comes a cluster of minute greenish florets, encircled by four to six large, showy, white petal-like bracts, quite like a small edition of the flowering dogwood blossom. ”

“ Colorless in every part, waxy, cold, and clammy, Indian pipes rise like a company of wraiths in the dim forest that suits them well. Ghoulish parasites, uncanny saprophytes, for their matted roots prey either on the juices of living plants or on the decaying matter of dead ones, how weirdly beautiful and decorative, they are! The strange plant grows also in Japan, and one can readily imagine how fascinated the native artists must be by its chaste charms. ”

“ Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring - that delicious commingling of the perfume of arbutus, the odor of pines, and the snow-soaked soil just warming into life? Those who know the flower only as it is sold in the city streets, tied with wet, dirty string into tight bunches, withered and forlorn, can have little idea of the joy of finding the pink, pearly blossoms freshly opened among the withered leaves of oak and chestnut, moss, and pine needles in which they nestle close to the cold earth in the leafless, windy northern forest. ”

“ If the capricious blossom shows a decided preference for any shade, it is for magenta, the royal purple of the ancients, scarcely tolerated now except by Hoboken Dutch and the belles of the kitchen, whose Sunday hats are resplendent with intense effects.
Only a few bergamot flowers open at a time; the rest of the slightly rounded head, thickly set with hairy calices, looks as if it might be placed in a glass cup and make an excellent pen wiper. If the cultivated human eye (and stomach) revolt at magenta, It is ever a favorite shade with butterflies. They flutter in ecstasy over the gay flowers ”

“ To the brilliant blossoms butterflies chiefly come to sip (see wild pink) , and an occasional hummingbird, fascinated by the color that seems ever irresistible to him, hovers above them on whirring wings. Hapless ants, starting to crawl up the stem, become more and more discouraged by its stickiness, and if they persevere in their attempts to steal from the butterfly's legitimate preserves, death overtakes their erring feet as speedily as if they ventured on sticky fly paper. ”

“ Consistent with the dainty, heart-shaped blossoms that hang trembling along the slender stem like pendants from a lady's ear, are the finely dissected, lace-like leaves, the whole plant repudiating by its femininity its most popular name. It was Thoreau who observed that only those plants which require but little light, and can stand the drip of trees, prefer to dwell in the woods - plants which have commonly more beauty in their leaves than in their pale and almost colorless blossoms. Certainly few woodland dwellers have more delicately beautiful foliage than the fumitory tribe. ”

“ Two canals leading to the sweets invite the visitor to thrust in her tongue, and as she hangs from the white heart and presses forward to drain the luscious drops, first on one side, then on the other, her hairy underside necessarily comes in contact with the pollen of younger flowers and - with the later maturing stigmas of older ones, to which she carries it later. But, as might be expected, this intelligent bee occasionally nips holes through the spurs of the flower that makes dining so difficult for her - holes that lesser fry are not slow to investigate. ”

“ When the tiny ruby-throated hummingbird flashes northward out of the tropics to spend the summer, where can he hope to find nectar so deeply secreted that not even the long-tongued bumblebee may rob him of it all? Beyond the bird's bill his tongue can be run out and around curves no other creature can reach. Now the early blooming columbine, its slender cornucopias brimming with sweets, welcomes the messenger whose needle-like bill will carry pollen from flower to flower ”

“ Contrary to popular impression, this vine, that suggests the dim old forest and exhales the very breath of the spring woods, will consent to run about our rock gardens, although it seems almost a sacrilege to move it from natural surroundings so impressively beautiful. Unlike the arbutus, which remains ever a wildling, pining slowly to death on close contact with civilization, the twin-flower thrives in light, moist garden soil where the sun peeps for a little while only in the morning. ”

“ Wading into shallow water or standing on some muddy shore, like a heron, this striking plant, so often found in that bird's haunts, is quite as decorative in a picture, and, happily, far more approachable in life. Indeed, one of the comforts of botany as compared with bird study is that we may get close enough to the flowers to observe their last detail, whereas the bird we have followed laboriously over hill and dale, through briers and swamps, darts away beyond the range of field-glasses with tantalizing swiftness. ”

“ Silvery-white chandeliers, hanging from the edges of the woods, light Flora's path in earliest spring, before the trees and shrubbery about them have begun to put forth foliage, much less flowers. Little plants that hug the earth for protection while rude winds rush through the forest and across the hillsides, are already starring her way with fragile, dainty blossoms; but what other shrub, except the serviceberry's twin sister the shadbush, or perhaps the spicebush, has the temerity to burst into bloom while March gusts howl through the naked forests? ”

“ The dark bluish-green, finely divided, rather glossy leaves when bruised do not give out the familiar fragrance of true parsley; the little narrow bracts, turned downward around each separate flower-cluster, give it a bearded appearance, otherwise the white umbel suggests a small wild carrot head of bloom. Cows have died from eating this innocent-looking little plant among the herbage; but most creatures know by instinct that it must not be touched. ”