| THE PRESERVATION OF WILD FLOWERS. |
By FRANCES ZIRNGIEBEL,
ROXBURY, MASS.
THE fact that several of our delicate and most beautiful wild flowers are fast disappearing from places where they were once found has led to an effort to prevent the complete extermination of certain species and the increasing scarcity of other plants. The plants so endangered differ in different localities. The endeavor to protect particular ones has therefore local modifications, but the basis of the movement, the desire to prevent wasteful destruction of plant life, is the same in all sections of the country.
A national society, known as 'The Wild Flower Preservation Society of America,' has been organized, aiming to do for the native plants what the Audubon Society has so well done for the birds. Its methods of work are similar to those of the bird society. In its official organ, The Plant World, has been published during the past year a series of articles on the general subject of plant preservation with the addition of specific suggestions regarding the flowers about New York city. Reprints of these articles may be obtained upon application to the secretary of the society, C. L. Pollard, 1854 Fifth Street, Washington, D. C. A number of persons in New England who take keen interest in wild flowers have united to form a 'Society for the Protection of Native Plants.' The object of this society is to try to do something to check the wholesale destruction to which our native plants are exposed. Brief appeals, to the general public, to children and to nature study teachers have beeen issued and widely distributed in the form of leaflets, which can be obtained of Miss Maria Carter, Boston Society of Natural History. In the state of Connecticut laws have been passed which protect the Hartford fern, and governing boards of various metropolitan reservations of field and woodland have made restrictions regarding the picking of their flora.
The problem presented to the various organizations interested in plant preservation is how depredations may be checked without seriously restricting the freedom or enjoyment of the nature lover. It is desired to set at work such factors as will arouse a healthy public sentiment against indiscriminate and thoughtless flower picking.
The work is much more difficult than that which was before the Audubon Society, and the right public sentiment can not be created in the same manner. Many of the strongest reasons given for bird
