Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1890-09-02
wiId-RIower Secrets.



zine for September.l
Look well to your wild flower. o poet
or botanist, ere Won claim to know it.
How has that little fringed polygala
laughed in its purple sleeves as you de-
scribed its beauties to your friendi Most
wild-fiower hunters are familiar with this
lovely blossom, with its close cluster of
leaves suggesting those of the checkerber-
~, and it's singular orchid-like, purple
winged flower, inevitably suggesting a
tiny butterfly with long fringed tail. 1t
is always prize, but the real nugget is
below. A search down there among the
moss at its root discloses a singular secret
not generally given away in the nosegay.
For this vain purple banneret signals the
way to a new ana unsuspected path in our
wild garden-the cleistogamic flowers
the plant having one blossom for the light
and another for the darkness. Like many
of its congeners and a long list of other
plants, the .fringed polygala shows one
face to the world and another to mother
earth. Here, worldling," she would
seem to say, take my tiuttering pennant,
if you will, but spare my anchor" These
subterranean anchor flowers are borne on
lbuH anu dEc CllllItAN pcN-
ais, appearing, indeed, more like small
roundish pods than flowers; but they plant
the mould with seed, and keep many a
spot in the woods perennially tufted with
the purple broods, else exterminated by
the vandal hand, whether that of botanist
or eager childhood. 1 have rarely met
with wild-fiower enthusiast who knows
even the spring violet. Take the common
blue species, for instance Viola cucullata);
you know it, of course. SIT blossoms in
the early spring" say you. oh, yes, for
poet and boutonniere, but not for posteri-
ty. Go now, even in November, to your
faYorite violet-bed in the woods, and find
your dozen blossoms where there was one
in May-if you can. The dry leaves are
rafting to the sowing of their seed show
ers, shot afar from the pods, ripening from
perfect flowers every day. have a clump
of this wild violet in my city yard, and
even as late as November have picked its
blooms, nodding among veritable galaxy
of white three-cornered stars of the open
pods, either empty or loaded full with their
charge of seed. This flower is not for
beauty, but for utility, looking merely like
disappointed green calyx; but it is load
ed with a potent energy unknown to its
vain vernal predecessor. For it would
seem. to be a law of nature that fruition is
lnNerstly US tue pelsiis vi lhe hoMeI-
Flowers artifcially doubled by turning the
stamens into petals are often without seed,
or with seeds which are germless. In the
wilds where nature wishes to insure a
fruitful life. it would seem she sometimes
entirely deprives the flower of its corolla,
as in the instances given-a pregnant text
which is feelingly committed to the pray
erful consideration of the worlds garden,
where all is vanity. This cautious pecu-
liarity is found in various plants, and is
doubtless the saving grace of many, as in
the case of the beautiful little polygala,
otherwise Uncertain districts eradicated in
posies. The cystus or frost-weed has a
golden rose or two for the poet, but later
on lower branches a thousand microscopic
blossoms which bear the responsibility of
posterity likewise. The gay young jewel
weed is decked with golden trinkets, but
later forgets her eardrops in the1Dres of
maternity. Certain of the clovers, like
the peanut, bury their flowers in the earth
to insure the seed.