Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1947-09-13
This and That
BIZ Charles E. TrdceDell
DECATUR STREET.

Dear Sir:
81 should like to tell you about vacation
experience I had which some one else may
like to try.
After the hurried moments OF getting on
a train the first thing we usually do is to
settle back in comfort and say Finally we're
off on our vacation My husband likes to
pull out a newspaper and read.
But this time decided I'd turn my chair
at convenient angle and watch the roadsides
for wildfowers all the way to our seaside
destination. Now the roadbed and banks on
either side of railroad tracks would not seem
to furnish very fertile ground for even the
most hardy of wildhowers.
But Mother Nature soon tries to cover up
man-made scars. Even over the cinder-cov
cred ground morning glories somehow found
root and bloomed And between the tracks
saw, to my establishment, the lovely orange
coored flowers of the pleurisy root growing
out of the cinder bed.
LAS we crossed a river happened to look
down at bulltup place over which the draw
bridge turned, and growing there was clump
of beautiful rose mallows. Some one has said,
Tt was as If Mother Nature could not bear
to have any spot unidentified with flowers
some time during the year. :
"As I watched the roadside and ground ad
Joining, was surprised to note the number
of varieties of wildfowers growing there.
identified them as bestsI could from my fleet
ing glimpses of them.
They were trumpet vine, daisy, goldenrod,
evening primrose, bouncing bet, cattail Joe
Pye weed, mullen, yarrow, self-heal, high
bush cranberry, white and yellow clover yell
low and white water lilies Gin pool adjoining
the tracks,, wild sundower, blackeyed Susan
Queen Annes lace, butter and eggs, morning
glory, swamp milkweed, pokeberry, thistle
burdock, fireweed and rose mallow.
There were others that I'd like to have
stopped the train to identify, but decided I'd
better not. One was lily, orange-red, perhaps
a day lily.
when we reached our destination felt
very we'll repaid for the way in which had
spent my time. Studying botany from a car
window was like seeing a colored movie of
some of our wildfowers.
VERY sincerely yours, E. D. B."
From whatever angle seen, wildfowers are
always interesting.
II more people in the world would become
interested in them, and less in disputation
about almost all matters, the world would be
a far better place than it is.
The wild1owers, growing where they can
find foothold, in forests, fields, cinders, even
from crevices between bricks and in con-
crete, show us the beauty of this world as
GOO made it.
In our own small garden we have bricked
gutter, to take of surface drainage from
the West.
This gutter is about feet wide and some
inches deep.
This summer It has been practically oblt-
Grated to the eye by the wild growth of some
plants feet high, with spikes Of pink flowers.
Try as we will we have been unable TO
identify them, but they are just as pretty
and have bloomed now for two months.
They do not mind the rushing water, In
times of rain. They stand straight and beau
tiful, getting the shade from the house.
These plants are something from a mixture
of seeds put out for the birds.
There is nothing in the yard more pleasing.
It seems that when flowers come up of them
selves they partake more of THE hardy nature
of weeds; they do not mind inirnical condi-
lions, but flourish far beyond the normal OF
more cultivated plants.
Few things in nature offer more than the
study of wildfowers They are intriguing
plants. closely connected with our national
history, and their literature Is fascinating.