Sharp County record., 1890-10-30
WlLD-FLOWER SECRETS.
Somc Bury Their blossoms In the Eartl
to Insure the seed.

oouic bury blOssOms III tne thfth
to Insure the Seed.
Look we'll to your wild flower, Opoet
or botanist, ere you claim to know i'll
How has that little fringed polygala
laughed in its purple sleeves as you de-
scribed its beauties to your friend
Most wildhower hunters are familiar
with this lovely blossom, with its close
cluster of leaves suggesting those of the
checkerberry, and its singular orchid
like, purple-winged flower inevitably
suggesting n tiny butterfly with a long
fringed tail, 1t is always prize, but
the real nugget is below. A search
down there among the moss at its root
discloses singular secret not generally
given away in the nosegay. For this
vain purple banneret signals the way to
new and unsuspected path in our wild
garden.-the cleistogamic iowers-the
plant having one blossom for the light
and another for the darkness. Like
many of its congeners and long list of
other plants, the fringed pologala shows
one face to the world and another to
mother earth. Here, worldling," she
would seem to say, take my futtering
pennant, II you will, but spare my an
chor.' These subterranean anchor
flowers are borne on long stems, and
are entirely without petals, appearing
indeed more like small roundish pods
than flowers; but they plant the mold
with seed and keep many 4 spot in the
woods perennially tufted with the pur-
pie broods, else exterminated by tho
vandal hand, whether that of botanist
or eager childhood. have rarely met
with wild-fower enthusiast who
knows even the spring violet Take
the common blue species, for instance
(Viola cuculldtd); you know it of course,
ut blossoms in the early spring" say
you. Oh, yes, for poet and boutonniere,
but not for posterity. Go, now, even in
November, to your favorite violet bed
in the woods, and find your dozen BIOS
SONS where there was one in May-if
you can. The dry leaves are rattlng to
the sowing of their seed showers, shot
afar from the pods, ripening from per-
feet flowers every day, | have 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 umerely like close pointed
green calyx; but 1t Is loaded with
potent energy unknown to its vain YER
nal predecessor. For it would seem to
be law of nature that fruition is in
versely as the petals of the flower.
Flowers artfcially doubled by turning
the stamens into petals are often with
out seed, or with seeds which are germ.
less. In the wilds where Nature wishes
to insure fruitful life, it would seem
she sometimesf entirely deprives the
flower Of its corolla, as in the instance
given-a pregnant text which is foel-
ingly committed to the prayerful con-
sideration Of the worlds garden, whore
uli 10 Nanipy' iHiS cauVio"o pcNuiiuiioJ
is found in various plants, and is doubt
less the saving grace of many, as in the
case of tho beautiful little polygala,
otherwise in certain districts eradicated
in posies The cystus or frost-weed has
golden rose or two for the poet, but
later on lower branches thousand mi.
croscopic blossoms which bear the re-
sponsibility of posterity likewise. The
gay young iewel-weed is deckod with
golden trinkets, but later forgets her
ear-drops in the cares of maternity.
Certain OF the clovers, like the peanut,
bury their flowers in the earth to insure
the seed. William Hamilton Gibson, in
Harper's Magazine.