Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-19
Final Burst of Glory.

! TN Spring and early Summer all the
- families of flowers make their APP
| pearance-all that you could expect to
see outside the tropics. at any rate.
No one Of them can claim leading nas
/ role. Not till the last of Summer does
| one family king 1t over all the rest,
but there Is no dsputing its rule IN
meadow and marsh.
The composite family, called also
daisy, thistle, aster and dandellon
| family, is so easy to recognize that even
children, once its features have been
pointed out. can never fail to greet II
| by its name.
| A composite flower is really a head
| of flowers, sort Of community or
| social organization of small flowers. IN
| big composite head like sunflower or
1 artichoke flower, mere glance VIII
prove this to anybody; in an aSter or
dandelion, you must pick the mead apart;
| There Is something strange in the
| coincidence that the last Of the families
| to get under way, in the years schedule
| of blooms was probably the last TO
evolve, in the obscure history OF flower
| ing plants
The Compositae are the peak of plant
evolution. No one species is pre-emi-
nent, as men are pre-eminent among
| animals but as a family they hold the
lead Though so new, they have spread
! all over the earth, from the Arctic
| Circle to the Equator. There are more
| kinds of flowers of the daisy family
| than are found in any other family,
though they have some powerful rivals
| such as the orchids, the legumes, the
grasses and the sedges. And their
| biologic success Is probably due to their
| city like organization.
A single bee, alighting on thistle
flower, will systematically pollinate
| every one of the individual f1orets.
Every horet is thus likely to set seed.
| Not every seed will succeed in producing
a mature plant; the infant mortality
| Is high among seedlings as among
humans-fortunately in fact, since the
| world would be overrun with composite
| flowers If it were not. But single
| dandelion head has over 200 florets;
| and its seeds are winged with down,
which enables them to spread far and
| wide and swiftly. Small wonder that
the dandelion has wormed its way into
\ sure chance of future successl The
| composite flowers, indeed, are the
| flowers of today and of the future.
If it is true that they have brought
us lot OF mischievouS weedS-daisies,
| thistles, dandelion, hawkWeed dog
| fennel, burdock and the hke-yet with
what blaze of glory our native COM
posites I'LL the woods and fields! Purple
| blazing stars, mauve joe-pye-weed,
| ironweed, golden sunflowerS and coreop-
| sis, black-eyed susanS-they are the
| royal, reigning family, the final burst
| OF glory in the pageantry Of the year.
wild Rice ON Potomac.
Etched against the skyline, over the
marshes down the Potomac, the wild
rice stands, like some fantastic design
| on an old Japanese screen. Indeed, the
wild rice, or species of it, grows In
Japan; but whoever knows the ways
of the vanished red man will recall that,
at this season, as the grains began to
| ripen, the Indians in their long canoes
followed the trail of the ducks and the
herons into the stands of wild rice.
where it was banked, mile upon mile,
| along the shallow WATERWAYS
With long falls, the SQuaWs beat the
Shivering culmS of the wild rice plants.
and, rafting and Kissing, the grains
tumbled into the floor of the canoe. It
was harvest once, as regular as the
harvest OF the corn, and In some parts
OF the Northwest the Indians still 20
agathering the mamma Of the Manitou.
Today, downrived, nobody I suppose,
ever gathers the sweet wild kernels,
though waterbirds, and, above all,
ducks and redwinged blackbirds, flock
to these fields in fall The fat bodies
OF the huntsman's bag are as tasty with
4 WAC AANAA, 9OAb GAdlil VI LIlG lovely wafer
plant as If they had been stuffed on
| sweet corn.
Wild rice, indeed, looks almost like
corn growing in the water. SO dense are
its stands, so noble its panicles Of
flowers, so thick and tall the stems or
culns, that one would suppose wild
rice was as perennial as the water reed.
Actually, however, the plants are an
nual; they grow from seed to seed In
one brief season, the grains sprouting
at the bottom of the water, in the mud,
each Spring.
| Wild Eice can be bought in WASH
ngton, at nne grocery stores and in the
Dig markets. The epicure Is well aware
That nothing else is suitable for serving
and pheasant, too, wild rice Is practi-
cally perfect vegetable. Like the birds
themselves, it has a gan1ey, smoky,
sweet taste. The polished rice of COM
merce Is q food reduced to starches,
quite devoid of vitamins; but wild
rice Is rich in vitamines and it has
never been denatured for super
civilized palates.
| Fern Time Of Year.
Late Summertime Is fern time for me.
After the frSt elfin uncoiling of their
tronds. ferns lose interest for most
plant lovers-proportiona at least
Too many sorts OF wildflowers bloom In
June and July to make ferns worth the
work Of hunting them. In the August
hull ferns suddenly come into their
own; under their delicate fronds the
fruit dots are ripening. ready to burst
with their mysterious cargo Of spores
which, like seeds. will scatter and, fall
ing upon favorable ground, start again
the mystical cycle of the fern, and q
strange, dryadlike. wood-loving, green
blooded life 1t is
Fern enthusiasts are not as objection
| able and virulent as the orchido-mani-
acs; I even prefer them to butterfly
cranks, moSsologists and mushroom en-
thusiaSts. Like the plants they study, |
they are retiring lot, and they walk in |
humility, conscious that the subking- |