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Show oo : WHAT SHALL BE OUR NATIONAL FLOWER? What shall be our national flower, is a question which still calls for an answer. The Manchester Union says: Ireland has the shamrock, Scotland the heather, and so on. The fact that this country has managed somehow to worry along for nearly 300 years .without a national flower doesn't alter alt-er the fact: We need a national flower, flow-er, and we shall not be entirely happy hap-py till we get it. The latest bill on the subject introduced In congress was fathered by Representative Stephens Ste-phens of Texas, and proposed to make the mountain laurel the national flower. flow-er. The suggestion is altogether appropriate, ap-propriate, for, as the Stephens bill says in its preamble: "It is in bloom on three of our greatest national holidays Independence-day, Decoration-day and Flag-day. Flag-day. Its flowers are red and white, red for courage, the white for purity, two of the colors in our flag, the and the leaves, combining as they do yellow for wisdom and blue for truth, blended together, forming the green of fruitfulness, are surely typical of our country. The seed pod on opening open-ing forms a perfect five-pointed star. The flower is wonderfully formed like I a chalice with five delicate curved edges, me biosoms -clustered together like the constellation of the states, and would mean 'The Unipn Forever.' For-ever.' " But long comes Elizabeth G. Brlt-ton, Brlt-ton, honorary curator of mosses of the New York botanical gardens, and objects ob-jects to the mountain laurel as the national flower, on apparently valid grounds. She says: "The selection of the mountain laurel as a national flower, would mean that many of the ropes used for Christmas decorations, much of the 'trimmings for fruit stands and baskets bask-ets and almost all of the briarwood pipes would be made from the laurel. The supply must come from wild sources, none of it being cultivated for these purposes. If we more than double the demand and add a number of other reasons for its destruction, the end is surely in sight." She points out that the goldenrod has been adopted by five states; that lit is native and widely distributed, but is "lacking in sentment and refined re-fined beauty." To which we would add that the goldenrod Is under pretty pret-ty general suspicious of being an accomplice ac-complice In the iniquity known as "hay fever." A bas the goldenrod! To Miss Britton personally, "It would seem as if the pine tree, which has just been adopted for the new 50-cent piece, would be more widespread In distribution and more suitable for our national emblem." The pine tree Is a beautiful flower, to be sure. It is not born to blush unseen, nor aoes it waste its iragrance on the desert air. But, unfortunately, the pine tree seems open to the same objection which Miss Britton makes to the mountain laurel, only more so. Conservation of the pine forests is recognized as a national problem. As she says of the laurel, so it Is of the pine! "If we more than double, the demand and add a number of other reasons for Its destruction, the end is surely in sight." What SHALL be chosen as the national na-tional flower? oo- |