The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1941-08-07
Botanists Heaped Honors
On Maryland Druggist
By KATHERINE SCARBOROUGH
Special Writer Of The Baltimore
Sunday Sun


can drop in casually for a soda and
drink it with a bowl Of wild flowers in
bloom on the counter at your elbow.
From early spring until snow flies
they are practically sure of being
there, according to season. Some are
natures originals of flowers that have
become familiar through cultivation
in gardens, but most of them have
never left their home in the wilds.
! The wayside and the deep woods, the
glades, fields and swamps of the COM
munity yield fascinating and con-
tinuous array of blossoms for this
unique flower show.
\ Flower That Traps Insects
If you go in at the right time you
may discover fine spray Of orchids
whose yellow petals are streaked with
purple, or the deep blue bells Of the
snowy campanula in combination with
the rare red of a Turks Cap lily and
the dropping tassels of the meadow
rue. On another occasion the bowl will
contain flowers which make fun of the
animal kingdom, with contours like
the head of turtle or the face of a
grinning monkey. At this season, with
| special luck, you may even come upon
one of the rarest and most curious of
all the mountain fora-the innocent
looking but carnivorous pitcher plant
with its dull red flower hanging like
a portent above the fleshy green leaves
which fold into a dubious cylinder and
form death trap for the insects they
entice to enter through their seduc-
| tive lips.
The location Of the swamp in which
the pitcher plant grows is known to
only two persons. One of these is DR..
Joseph E. Harmed, proprietor of the
drug store, and the man who not only
provides his customers with living ex-
hibits of the floral beauties and curios-
tiles of the region but who repuetdly
knows more about the wild flowers of
the Alleghenies than anyone else in
the world. The other is a boy who dis
covered it accidentally and, not know
! ing what he had, brought it to DR..
! Harmed for examination with some
other specimens he had collected for
an herbarium after the Oakland phar-
macist had spent thirty years botanic
ing through the swamp areas of Mary
land, West Virginia and Pennsylva-
mia where it would be likely to grow
and had failed to find it. To prevent
| the possible determination Of so unu-
\ sual a specimen neither will divufge
| the secret.
| Discoverer Of Four
Tall, erect, white of hair and mus
tache, Dr. Harmed can look back on
almost seventy years of intimate as
ISOLATION with wild flowers. He has
discovered at least four which no other
botanist has listed One of these, the
Swamp Clintonia, is a member of the
lily family. DR.. Harmed came upon it
IN swamp located in what once must
have been gigantic pine forest To-
Gated about one mile from the village
of GAINESVILLE
The leather-leafed goldenrod, which
appears anywhere from four to six
weeks earlier than other varieties, was
! located on botanizing trip near Cum
berland with the late Prof. George M.
lrPerdew. The mountain thoroughwort,
which he calls E. Harnedii Steele N. S.
P, resembles the familiar Joe-Pya
Weed, but differs radically in impor-
tant respects. Most beautiful and
most recent of all DR.. Harned's dis
coveries is a white double trillium.
which he found in the woods along the
Cheat River in West Virginia. It's
flower resembles a large white orchid
and has no floral organs except petals,
being propagated from the root.
His Book Famous
More important than his discover
les, even, is DR.. Harned's monumental
book, "Wild Flowers of the Alleghe-
MES" Ga product Of the Sincell Print
ing Company's press, Oakland), which
is veritable encyclopedia of lore
concerning the Appalachian flora and
is recognized as an authority by bot
anists and plant experts in all parts
of the country. More than 1000 wild
flowers are listed and described in its
67O pages, together with their his
tories and habits, the legends which
have grown up around them, and, in
some cases, a verse or two of poetry
they have inspired
Almost half a century of study and
preparation went into the making of
this book, which was first published
in 1881 and has gone into it's second
edition. When DR.. Harmed began its
composition he had two clerks to help
him in his pharmacy, but before he
had fairly got started both went into
the armed service of the first World
War, and he had to devote much of
the time he had planned to spend in
writing to filling prescriptions for
stomach-ache and rheumatism.
Eye Trouble An Obstacle
Nevertheless, set down laboriously
in long hand after the drugstore closed
of niubt tbo t,,apucorin+ crrory eIo,,,IH,