Middletown transcript., 1910-06-18
vENUs's LOOKING GLASS, DC.
Some Wild Flowers For Table
Decorations

Nature in her large botanical gardens
all about ns in field and wood, offers many
lovely, perfumed plants and flowers fissad
to cheer and beautify the homs-at no
cost save healsh-giving jauus to the
woodland to hunt them.
The TRANSCRIPT scribe, az his sonns-
time wont is, went bosanizing recently
and found two plants which Wills ios
Illustrations Of the charming material Gor
house adoFnmens that fills the woods.
Kalmia or Calico B0sh, Mountain
Laurel, as 1t is more populaEly called, IL q
member Of the highly interesting Erica
ceae Or Heath family which includes tha6
lowly, sweet flower visitor tbas In early
spring ere yet the snows are quite gone,
on some bleak hillside bravely lifta ila
fragrant loveliness amid shs yst desolate
forest around. In England 1t IL known
by che now celebrated name Of che s'May.
aoweR," bestowed as every school boy
knows, upon the stout little craft that on
the chill winters day in 1920 landed as
Plymouth Rock, Mass, onF glorious Pil-
grim Fathers. So, among the Heaths are
the gaudy, fiame-colored AEaiea bush; the
lovely Pipsissewa: the scented, toosh-soms
robbery bearing Gaulthsria or Winter
green; the curious. parssitical plant that
yon will commonly find under the beech
tres living on its root.sap-the Indian
Pipe or as il is styled from It's total want
of color in stem and foweE-the Corpse
Plant.
On the other hand in this Heath
Family, besides soma other handsome
members, are numbered che very useful
edible onee of the Gaylussacia or w lortle-
berries among which are the familiar
Huckleberry OF several sorts, the Gram
berry and the Blueberry, etc.
But to return TO the Kalmis or Calico
Bush. All the Heaths are eveEgreens,
with more or less thick leathery leaves
and their foliage IL therefore we'll adapted
to keep its hue and sheen when branches
oft are potted in water as house bouquet.
Everybody knows this snowy bush, iouE
to eight feet high, with its thick leaves Of
shiny green and bearing cOrymbs of whits,
cup-like flowers, each one with 10 tiny
depresaions in its corolla Showing under
meath like 10 little knobs) into which the
brown anthsrs of the 10 slender bowed
stamens fit, which if slightly lifted loose
with pin will fly up and curl around the
pistil, hurling at the same time their
golden pollen dust Eve or six inches up
into the air--thus fertiliEing the pissil.
A branch Of this shrub put 10 water,
will keeper of leaf and fresh Of blossom
for over two weeks-ths fowsrets means
while coming slowly into bloom. One Of
its names, the Mountain Laurel, tells the
story of its chosen habitat or home-the
hilIsides-preferably stony Ones-whegs
you will find il in the woods above Silver
Lake.
Another handsome center-table flower
piece, though Of ; different order Of
beauty, is Specnlaria or Yenus's Locking.
Glass, which belongs to the Csmpann-
laceae Family-from campanulas dimin.
utive of the Italian campana, q bell. This
little floral makes pretty ornament II set
in q fower-vase Tin water, Of CouFssl and
with roses, nassursiums, etc.
Il is branchIess hsrb, With stem square
enough to be mistaken for mint grow
ing from three to eight inches high, and
bearing along les spiks-like ssem little
Ave parted flowers shout
one-half inch broad or less. Perhaps the
most characteristic feature Of shs plant are
its small oval leaVes-neyer more than
half an inch in size-ranged about half
inch apart along the stem which their
bases clasp in such way %
to form sort Of cup or pouch out Of which
tie fewer springs 6H II - aasaGFs fes;els o.
stalk.
From the fact that the Venus's Looking
Glass flowers In raeeme, lie infor-
escencs is ascending or from the bottom
Of the floral axis towards the top; and the
little blue flowers gradually open one By
one from the lowest TO the tOpmOst
blooms. Thus there are always new fresh
flowers appearing for several weeks tiilthe
last one at the very tip Of the nodding
spike is reached. It lie an interestiDgsight
to watch the small buds from day to day
unfold their valvate petals before one on
the dining table.
Here, then, THE TRANSCRIPT offers ito
readers two fine wild flowers for table
use, the KaImia blooming sill yuly and the
specularia till September and both plants
plucked without roots, keeping weeks in
water.
-~@~
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