A still more popular edition of what has proved to the author to be a
surprisingly popular book, has been prepared by the able hand of Mr. Asa
Don Dickinson, and is now offered in the hope that many more people will
find the wild flowers in Nature’s garden all about us well worth
knowing. For flowers have distinct objects in life and are everything
they are for the most justifiable of reasons, _i.e._, the perpetuation
and the improvement of their species. The means they employ to
accomplish these ends are so various and so consummately clever that, in
learning to understand them, we are brought to realize how similar they
are to the fundamental aims of even the human race. Indeed there are few
life principles that plants have not worked out satisfactorily. The
problems of adapting oneself to one’s environment, of insuring healthy
families, of starting one’s children well in life, of founding new
colonies in distant lands, of the cooperative method of conducting
business as opposed to the individualistic, of laying up treasure in the
bank for future use, of punishing vice and rewarding virtue--these and
many other problems of mankind the flowers have worked out with the help
of insects, through the ages. To really understand what the wild flowers
are doing, what the scheme of each one is, besides looking beautiful, is
to give one a broader sympathy with both man and Nature and to add a
real interest and joy to life which cannot be too widely shared.
Neltje Blanchan.
_Oyster Bay, New York, January_ 2, 1917.
_Editor’s Note_.--The nomenclature and classification of Gray’s New
Manual of Botany, as rearranged and revised by Professors Robinson and
Fernald, have been followed throughout the book. This system is based
upon that of Eichler, as developed by Engler and Prantl. A variant form
of name is also sometimes given to assist in identification.--A.D.D.