Show 1 WILD FLOWER CUDS A Dellslitfnl Way to Study Boianj inSummer TItle Frdm the iime the ilfs anemone pushes its delicate headT so timidly ti tu light early in April unIl late in November is blown away the last seed of S The blue gentian flower that in the breeze Nods lonely of her beauteous race the last there is a continuous procession of sweetly and sometimes gorgeously beautiful wild flowers moving over the land Nowhere in the world is there such a variety of wild flowers to cic t p j1 p I t r FINDING SHE FIT nLOSSO t > e found and perhaps in no other country is less attention paid to preserving pre-serving them from extinction or to familiarizing the young generation with their history and habits Yet properly presented there is no more fascinating pursuit for lively boys and girls than the study and collection of wild flowers Qualifications For Membership A Wild Flower club having for its object the taking of ong tramps on Saturday afternoons exploring woods and marshes observing the places where certain flowers are found and their habits bringing home specimens and tracing up the history of each flower would have a great deal to commend it To be of real value it would be necessary for each member to keep a flower diary The exact date when the first blossom of its kind was discovered dis-covered the place where it was found with a description of its condition marshy or dry and rocky in the shadow of a rock in the depths of a wood or in the broad sunshine the botanical and anatomical peculiarities peculiari-ties of leaf and root and blossom all these or as many as possible should be Jotted down in the little lank book provided for the purpose Such a club has already been formed by I rft1tLL I o da11i1I 5 fese earl i 0uJ5 t toitthS uZ bk 3oetrj t3j I I some more grown up young people at Wilmington Del The spoils of the field and the knowledge gleaned by the members of the club could be utilized in many delightful de-lightful and practical ways A wildflower wild-flower calendar would be a charming Christmas gift Every month has Us own particular flowers which might be painted on the leaves of the pad the anemone and hepstlca for April the daisy and wild rose for June the gentian gen-tian for Noveiriber Underneath each cluster of blossoms might be written i or printed a quotation from one of the poets in which the flower is mentioned men-tioned These are easy enough to find for the poet who did not know and love the humblest flowers of the field has not live I one cannot paint a carefully pressed specimen of each flower would not be a bad substitute fower substtute carrying as i would the suggestion of more intimate acquaintance with the giver and summer rambles Studying the Habits of Plants In addition to discovering the peculiarities pecu-liarities of the homes and haunts of the wild flowers and the peculiar months they choose for unfolding their beauties the explorers may learn a great deal that if interesting about the habits of plants Perhaps all the lads and lasses who see the daisy and the dandelion and the clover dotting the fields do not know that flowers and plants have habits quite as fixed as boys and girls and men and women There Is this difference of course The boys and girls of today have many manners I f JuNf i tmti S 4l 3 O 1IO4tS all and habits which are not at all like those of the days when their great grandparents were children while the habits of the anemone and daisy are just the same as were those of their ancestors which pleased the children of a century ago S The cultivated flowers which the > J I florist displays so temptingly behind his plate glass windows are flowers which have changed their habits And Jjjjr the waydid you know that there are more than la hundred thousand thou-sand varieties of flowering plants and only about a thousand have been coaxed to change their habits bits One of the habits which all flowers al fowers have in common whether cultivated cultvated or wild justs the children of today like those of long ago have a habit of eating is i that of turning the face of their leaves to the sunlight Just watch a climbing vine on a wall and you will notice that the ribbed side of the leaves is turning toward the solid surface and the smooth side outward out-ward Or observe the house plants in the window Dont move the pots for a few days and you will see al the leaves turned toward the glass Only the backs of the leaves will be visible from the room The Dnlsy n Little Immigrant There are a number of flowers which have the wise habit of shutting heir eyes and going to sleep with the sun and the lark I is believed the daisy was called the days eye at first because of this habit of opening its blossoms in the mornIng and closing again at sunset sun-set Look at it after dark and you will find a little ball wi fnd t ltle green hl hardly distinguishable from the grasses about And then again next morning and you will see a golden tuft within a silver crown as the poet calls it The poets have all loved the daisy Chaucer who as you know was one of the earliest English poets says And ever I love it and ever like new And ever I shall till that mIle heart die Burns wrote about the crimson crmson tippet mountain daisy And Mrs Browning compared the golden hearted daisy that decks our fields everywhere in June to sweet and iov able girls My daisies your praise Is That you are like maidens as maidens should be Winsome with freshness and wholesome whole-some to see Innocentlooking face the world in the Yet fearless with natures own innocent inno-cent grace Full of sweet goodness yet simple in art i White in the soul pure gold in the I heart It seems rather a pity that the daisy has not been given a place fn our national na-tional bouquet Its rugged independence independ-ence and ability to thrive in the most unpromising spots making a poem of the most sterile fields together with its modest beauty all seem qualities to make i worthy a place in the national na-tional bouquet a nation of plain people peo-ple To be sure the daisy isnt a native na-tive American Its a little immigrant flower like the Mayflower and the Mayflower folks but that ought really to be in its favor if we are to have a national bouquetPATRICIA PATRICIA MOORE |