PREFACE
TO THE
WILD FLOWERS OF NORTH AMERICA.
he first and second edition of our Book of Wild Flowers was published last year under the title of “CANADIAN WILD FLOWERS;” but it has been suggested by some American friends that we ought not to have limited the title to the Wild Flowers of Canada, as nature has given them a much wider geographical range, and, in fact, there are none of those that have been portrayed and described in our volume but may be found diffused over the whole of the Eastern and Northern States of the Union, as well as to the North and West of the Great Lakes. We, therefore, have rectified the error in our present issue, not wishing to put asunder those whom the Great Creator has united in one harmonious whole, each family and tribe finding its fitting place as when it issued freshly forth from the bounteous hand of God who formed it for the use of His creatures and to His own honor and glory.
As our present volume embraces but a select few of the Native Flowers of this Northern Range of the Continent, it is our intention to follow it by succeeding series, which will present to our readers the most attractive of our lovely Wild Flowers, and flowering shrubs. The subject offers a wide field for our future labours.
What a garland of loveliness has nature woven for man’s admiration, and yet, comparatively speaking, how few appreciate the beauties thus lavishly bestowed upon them?
The inhabitants of the crowded cities know little of them even by name, and those that dwell among them pass them by as though they heeded them not, or regarded them as worthless weeds, crying, “Cut them down, why cumber they the ground?” To such careless ones they do indeed “waste their sweetness on the desert air.” Yet the Wild Flowers have deeper meanings and graver teachings than the learned books of classical lore so much prized by the scholar, if he will but receive them.
They shew him the parental care of a benificent God for the winged creatures of the air, and for the sustenance of the beasts of the field. They point to the better life, the resurrection from the darkness of the grave. They are emblems of man’s beauty and of his frailty. They lend us by flowery paths from earth to heaven, where the flowers fade not away. Shall we then coldly disregard the flowers that our God has made so wondrously fair, to beautify the earth we live on?
Mothers of America teach your little ones to love the Wild Flowers and they will love the soil on which they grew, and in all their wanderings through the world their hearts will turn back with loving reverence to the land of their birth, to that dear home endeared to their hearts by the remembrance of the flowers that they plucked and wove for their brows in their happy hours of gladsome childhood.
How many a war-worn soldier would say with the German hero of Schiller’s tragedy:
“Oh gladly would I give the blood stained victor’s wreath
For the first violet of the early spring,
Plucked in those quiet fields where I have journeyed.”
Schiller.
Our Artist has tastefully combined in the wreath that adorns her title page several of our native Spring Flowers. The simple blossoms of Claytonia Virginica, better known by its familiar name “Spring Beauty,” may easily be recognized from the right hand figure in the group of the first plate in the book. For a description of it see page 16.
The tall slender flower on the left side on the title page is Potentilla Canadensis, (Var simplex). This slender trailing plant may be found in open grassy thickets, by road side wastes, at the foot of old stumps, and similar localities, with the common Cinquefoil or Silver Leaf. This last species is much the most attractive plant to the lover of wild flowers. It abounds in dry gravelly and sandy soil, courting the open sunshine, rooting among stones, over which it spreads its slender reddish stalk, enlivening the dry arid wastes with its silvery silken leaves and gay golden rose-shaped blossoms.
The Potentilla family belongs to the same Natural Order, Rosaceæ, as the Strawberry, Raspberry, Blackberry and the Rose—a goodly fellowship of the useful and the beautiful among which our humble Cinquefoil has been allowed to find a place.
The little plant occupying the lower portion of the plate is Viola sagittata, “Arrow Leaved Violet.” The anthers of the stamens are flesh coloured or pale orange; the slender pointed sepals of the calyx are of a bright light green, which form a lively contrast to the deep purple closely wrapped pointed buds that they enfold. The leaves are of a dull green, somewhat hairy, narrow, blunt at the apex, not heart-shaped as in many of the species but closed at the base and bordering the short channelled foot-stalk. Among our numerous species few are really more lovely than “the Arrow Leaved Violet.” Viola ovata and Viola villosa closely resemble the above, and probably are varieties of our pretty flower.
The violet, like the rose and lily, has ever been the poet’s flower. This is not one of our earliest violets; it blossoms later than the early white violet, V. rotundifolia or than the early Blue Violet, V. cucullata, or that delicate species V. striata, the lilac striped violet, which adorns the banks and hill sides on some of our plain lands, early in the month of May. Later in this month and in the beginning of June we find the azure blossoms of V. sagittata in warm sheltered valleys, often among groups of small pines and among grasses on sandy knolls and open thickets. The plant grows low, the leaves on very short foot-stalks closely pressed to the ground; the bright full blue flowers springing from the crown of the plant on long slender stems stand above the leaves.
The petals are blunt, of a full azure blue, white at the base and bearded. Among many allusions to this favourite flower, here are lines somewhat after the style of the older poets, addressed to early violets found on a wintry March day at Waltham Abbey.
TO EARLY VIOLETS.
Children of sweetest birth,
Why do ye bend to earth
Eyes in whose softened blue,
Lies hid the diamond dew?
Has not the early ray,
Yet kissed those tears away
That fell with closing day?
Say do ye fear to meet
The hail and driving sleet,
Which gloomy winter stern
Flings from his snow-wreathed urn?
Or do ye fear the breeze
So sadly sighing thro’ the trees,
Will chill your fragrant flowers,
Ere April’s genial showers
Have visited your bowers?
Why came ye till the cuckoo’s voice,
Bade hill and vale rejoice;
Till Philomel with tender tone,
Waking the echoes lone,
Bids woodland glades prolong
Her sweetly tuneful song;
Till sky-lark blithe and linnet grey,
From fallow brown and meadow gay,
Pour forth their jocund roundelay;
Till ‘cowslip, wan’ and ‘daisies pied’
’Broider the hillock’s side,
And opening hawthorn buds are seen,
Decking each hedge-row screen?
What, though the primrose drest
In her pure paly vest
Came rashly forth
To brave the biting North,
Did ye not see her fall
Straight ’neath his snowy pall;
And heard ye not the West wind sigh
Her requiem as he hurried by?
Go hide ye then till groves are green
And April’s clouded bow is seen;
Till suns are warm, and skies are clear
And every flower that does appear,
Proclaims the birthday of the year.
Though Canada does not boast among her violets the sweet purple violet (Viola odorata) of Britain she has many elegant species remarkable for beauty of form and colour; among these “The Yellow Wool Violet,” the “Song Spurred Violet” and the “Milkwhite Wool Violet,” (V. Canadensis) may be named. These are all branching violets, some, as the yellow and the white, often attain, in rank shaded soil, to a foot in height and may be found throwing out a succession of flowers through the later summer months. They will bloom freely if transplanted to a shady spot in the garden.
PLATE I.
| 3 ANEMONE NEMOROSA | 2 UVULARIA PERFOLIATA | 4 CLAYTONIA VIRGINICA |
| (Wood Anemone) | (Large flowered Bellwort) | (Spring Beauty) |
| 1 HEPATICA ACUTILOBA | ||
| (Sharp lobed Hepatica) | ||
Nat. Ord. Ranunculaceæ.
“Lodged in sunny clefts,
Where the cold breeze comes not, blooms alone
The little Wind-flower, whose just opened eye
Is blue, as the spring heaven it gazes at.”
Bryant.
HE American poet, Bryant, has many happy allusions to the Hepatica under the name of “Wind-FlowerSnow-Flower