Flower Guide: Wild Flowers East of the Rockies / (Revised and with New Illustrations)

HER FIRST LESSON IN BOTANY
BY CHESTER A. REED Author of “North American Birds’ Eggs,” “Bird Guide,” Etc.
With 320 Flowers in Color, Painted by the Author
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1927
Copyrighted, 1907 CHAS. K. REED Worcester, Mass.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
Since the publication, early in 1906, of the first edition of Bird Guide, the author has been besieged by requests from all parts of the country, and from people in every walk and station of life, to continue the idea and bring out similar volumes on flowers, butterflies, fish, animals, etc. The present volume has been carefully prepared with two objects always in view—to serve the greatest number of persons in the best possible way—and still have a volume that can be carried in the pocket with little or no discomfort. The great majority of the colored paintings have been made directly from living plants, and the balance, with few exceptions, from herbarium specimens. They represent normal specimens and have been so chosen as to include those of the conspicuous flowering plants found from the Atlantic seaboard west to the States of the Mississippi Valley. Using my 25 years, devoted largely to the study of living things, as a criterion, I have endeavored to incorporate in the text and in the pictures just those points that will best serve to identify a flower that the reader may find. The introductory pages give the life cycle of a plant from seed to seed and many curious facts concerning curious plants.
Should this volume identify some of the flowers that the reader may discover, and give him a clearer idea of the appearance and beauty of the growing things that may be found, the author’s purpose will have been fully accomplished.
CHESTER A. REED.
Worcester, Mass., 1907.
A plant is a wonderful organism, yet how few of us realize it as we casually glance at the flowers growing by the wayside. We see a beautiful flower; we know that in the course of time it withers and fades away; and we know that the next year the plant grows up again, sends forth its buds, which at the proper time unfold their petals, and so the cycle continues year after year, while we give little thought to the change that occurs, the cause and its effect. Volumes might be written, and a great many have been since the time of Darwin, upon the many interesting processes by which various flowers are propagated. As this book is confined chiefly to the identification of flowers, we will give but a few illustrations between flowering seasons. We see in most flowers a thing of beauty; their real and, to them, most important function is to produce seeds to perpetuate the species.