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New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

Flowers and Their Friends

BY

MARGARET WARNER MORLEY

AUTHOR OF “SEED-BABIES,” “A FEW FAMILIAR FLOWERS,” ETC.

GINN & COMPANY

BOSTON · NEW YORK · CHICAGO · LONDON

Copyright, 1897, by

MARGARET WARNER MORLEY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

36.4

The Athenæum Press

GINN & COMPANY · PROPRIETORS

BOSTON · U.S.A.

A LETTER
TO THE READERS OF THIS BOOK.

❃

Dear Children,—

It would be very stupid indeed to try to read a book written in Arabic or Hebrew; we should soon tire and put it down.

It is just as uninteresting to read English words whose meaning we do not understand; we might as well devote ourselves to a foreign and unknown tongue.

I hope you will never do it. If you do not know what a word means, find out. There is a list of words you may not know at the back of this book to help you. They are all words used in the book, and if you look you may not find them as stupid as you think. Some day you will discover that the dictionary is quite an exciting and interesting volume.

Meantime enjoy the flowers and their insect friends all you can, and be sure you know the meaning of all the words that tell about them.

Your friend,

The Author.

CONTENTS.

Morning-Glory Stories.

THE FLOWER.

The morning-glory and the bracted bindweed might be taken for sisters, they look so much alike. There is no doubt but that they are closely related, although the bindweed grows wild and the morning-glory has to be sown by us.

The bindweed lives in the country and twines over the hedges by the roadside; you can see its pink-and-white flowers all summer long if you look in the right places.

It is a jolly sort of life the bindweed leads, always twining, twining, twining, with its leaves facing the sunshine and its flowers dancing on their slender stems.

We often call the bindweed the wild morning-glory, and we and the bees are fond of it. We enjoy looking at it, and probably the bees do, too, though they have yet another reason for liking it. Just watch one go into a wild morning-glory some fine day. You will think she expects to find something very delightful indeed from the way she hurries in. And so she does. She buzzes down the white line to the very bottom of the flower, crowds her head as far in as she can get it, and then thrusts her long brown tongue yet deeper in to where the honey lies. For the flower makes honey for the bee, and keeps it hidden as deep as possible. There are five openings in the bottom of the flower cup that go straight into the honey wells. You need only look into a morning-glory and you will see them. All kinds of morning-glories, as well as the bindweeds, have them.

The bees know this, and wherever you see the morning-glories you will see their little winged friends.

Very many flowers provide honey for the insects, and it is fortunate for us that they do; for if they did not, we should see no butterflies and have no honey, for butterflies and bees cannot live without the honey the flowers give them.

Flower honey has a special name; we often call it nectar, for a good reason which I mean to tell you another time.

The places where the nectar is stored are the nectar holders, or nectaries.

It must be a fine thing to go to a flower and take a drink of honey whenever you wish; but what will you say when I tell you the bees get bread as well as honey from the flowers?

Yet this is what happens. You could not live upon honey alone; neither could a bee. Perhaps you could not live upon bread and honey; but you could if you were a bee, that is, beebread and honey.

For beebread is much more nutritious than the bread we eat. In fact, it takes the place of meat and eggs and milk and all the other things we take such pains to get.

You do not see where a bee finds bread in a flower?

That is because you are not a bee. If you were, you would know at once.

Suppose you watch a bee go into a morning-glory.

She will be in a great hurry, and you will have to keep your eyes open, or all will be over before you know what has happened.

She will suck up the honey, and then very likely she will turn around and around on the white pole-like part that stands up in the middle of the flower. She is not doing this for fun, nor because she is confused and does not know which way to go next.

She is gathering fine flour of which to make beebread.

Put your finger into the morning-glory and you, too, may gather this fine flour.

When you take your finger out there will be something like fine white powder clinging to it. Well, that is the flour from which the bee makes her beebread. We call it pollen, and if we look closely we shall find it is stored in five tiny boxes.

These boxes, which are called anthers, open by a slit along one side, and the bee puts her funny little feet into the slits and scrapes out the pollen, which she moistens with honey and packs into baskets on her hindermost legs, or fastens to the hairs on the under side of her body.

Then she goes home and packs her load away in the hive for future use.

You see it is not much trouble to make beebread—that is, if you know how. It does not have to be raised or baked, yet I doubt if you or I would be able to make it so that a bee would consider it fit to eat.

These anthers are held up on long white stalks which grow to the inside of the flower cup, and which are named filaments.

Since there are five anthers there are five filaments.

We call the whole thing, anther and filament, a stamen.

But this is not all there is to be found in a morning-glory flower. There is something else, and if it were not for this something else we should not have the fun of learning about honey and stamens, because there would be none! Both honey and stamens exist because of this something else.

It is in the very center of the flower, and the stamens stand about it in a circle. It stands up like a pole and has a knob at the top. The knob sticks out above the stamens as a rule. When the flower cup falls, the stamens fall too, because the filaments grow fast to it. But this something else does not fall. It stays on the vine, and you can see it better after the flower cup has fallen.

We call it the pistil. It has neither honey nor pollen, yet on its account the bees and butterflies visit the flowers.

The Pistil.

Here is its picture, and you may look at it as carefully as you please. The knob at the top is called the stigma, the long, slender part is called the style, and the round bottom the ovary.

If you look over all the vine you will make a discovery. You will find a great many of these pistils in different stages of growth. When the flower cup first falls off, the pistil is very small and has its style and stigma. Then the style and stigma fall, and only the ovary remains. This grows larger and plumper, and you tell me it is the seed-pod, and is full of seeds. You are right about that; it is the seed-pod, and the pistil is the part where the seeds grow.

So now you see how very important it is, and I would advise you to take another look at it.

If there were no seeds there could be no more plants, so the growth of the seed is a matter of great importance.

When the seed first begins to form it is tiny and soft and delicate. It is attached to the inside of the ovary, and we do not then call it a seed, but an ovule. The word “ovule” means “little egg,” and the ovules are really the eggs of the plant, as you will agree if you think a moment.

If all goes well, the tiny, soft ovule becomes a large, hard seed. But it cannot do this alone; it needs help. Probably you never could guess what helps it, so I will tell you at once: it is the pollen.

If a pollen grain can unite with an ovule, the two thus joined together can grow into a seed. So you see the flower does not provide pollen for the use of the bee alone. It makes it for its own seed-children.

But the bee is the messenger that carries the pollen to the ovule. You see the pollen grain of our morning-glory lies in the anther below the stigma, and it must reach the stigma so as to find its way down to the ovary. Just how all this comes about you will know later; only now remember that the pollen must get to the stigma, and that the bee puts it there. Not on purpose, though. The bee collects pollen for her own use, but in doing so touches the stigma with her pollen-covered body, and some of the pollen grains stick to the stigma instead of remaining on the bee.

When the pistil is ripe, the stigma is sticky and holds fast the pollen grains that touch it. The union of ovule and pollen is called fertilization, and by flying about from flower to flower the insects carry pollen from one flower to another, and thus fertilize the plants.

You will know a great deal more about this later.

So we see the pollen is made for the sake of the seeds. The honey is also made for the sake of the seeds, for it attracts the insects that are necessary to fertilize the flower. Even the flower cup has its bright and beautiful coloring to attract the attention of the insects and call them to it. The name of the flower cup is the “corolla,” and means “a little crown” or “garland.”

The corolla is not the only covering the inner parts have. Look at the end of the flower next the stem and you will see the green calyx. When the corolla falls off, the calyx stays and protects the tender ovary. The calyx has five parts, or sepals, and these fold about the ovary like a green cup and keep it safe.

Calyx.

When the ovules are ready for the pollen, the flower puts on its beautiful garland as a sign that the life of the plant is to be renewed.

When we look at the flowers in the fields and gardens we may know that their loveliness is also a promise for the future.

THIS IS THE FLOWER SO BRIGHT AND GAY.

Most flowers have, like the morning-glory, corolla, stamens, and nectar to assist the pistil in developing the seeds.

The sweet pea has, and somebody once told a story about it that I am going to tell you, because I think it will help you to remember the parts of the flower and their uses.

This is the flower so bright and gay.

This is the stamen that lives in the flower so bright and gay.

This is the anther that grows on the stamen that lives in the flower so bright and gay.

This is the pollen that lies in the anther that grows on the stamen that lives in the flower so bright and gay.

This is the bee that gathers the pollen that lies in the anther that grows on the stamen that lives in the flower so bright and gay.

This is the stigma that brushes the bee that gathers the pollen that lies in the anther that grows on the stamen that lives in the flower so bright and gay.

This is the style that leads from the stigma that brushes the bee that gathers the pollen that lies in the anther that grows on the stamen that lives in the flower so bright and gay.

This is the ovary that stands under the style that leads from the stigma that brushes the bee that gathers the pollen that lies in the anther that grows on the stamen that lives in the flower so bright and gay.

This is the ovule that hides in the ovary that stands under the style that leads from the stigma that brushes the bee that gathers the pollen that lies in the anther that grows on the stamen that lives in the flower so bright and gay.

This is the seed that grows from the ovule

BECAUSE

the ovule hid in the ovary, the ovary stood under the style, the style led from the stigma, the stigma brushed the bee, the bee gathered the pollen, the pollen lay in the anther, the anther grew on the stamen, and the stamen lived in the flower so bright and gay!

THE CALYX.

The calyx is green.

The calyx is strong.

The calyx protects the ovary.

It has five sepals—five green sepals.

They overlap like the tiles on a roof and thus protect the ovary from rain. They also protect it from insects that otherwise might destroy it.

The calyx covers the base of the corolla and forms a green urn, a little vase, in which to hold it secure from harm.

It is not bright and delicate like the corolla, but what would the flower do without it?

BLOSSOM DEAR.

Blossom dear, what is the power

Draws the shining wings to thee?

Nestled in thy dainty bower

I can always find a bee.

Little friend, my bees find honey

Hidden deep as deep can be.

Without fear and without money

Come they for these sweets to me.

Flower, flower, give me honey,

Give me honey from thy store.

I will pay with love and money;

Stores of money, and love much more.

Dear, I cannot give you honey.

Shall I truly tell you why?

Bees pay better worth than money

As they have wings, but you can’t fly!

So I coax them with my honey,

Feed them with my very best,

While their wings bear life to many

Waiting in the cradle nest.

For the children of the flowers

Need the precious pollen dust,

And the bees have winged powers

To bear to them this sacred trust.

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE GARDEN.

The morning-glory lay rolled up in the bud down under the leaves. One day it bloomed.

The firm stem held it up, the bud unrolled, and the blossom stood there, fresh and fair.

The bees saw it from afar, and came as fast as they could.

They flew to the pink corolla, and, entering, enjoyed the feast spread for them.

The morning-glory, because of their coming, had filled the nectar cups and opened the boxes of snow-white pollen.

One after the other the bees came, drank the nectar, and carried away the pollen. As fast as the cups were emptied they were filled again.

The honeybees and the bumblebees were provided with baskets, which they filled with pollen; but the other bees carried it away on the long hairs of their bodies.

The morning-glory glowed in the sunshine all day long, happy, no doubt, in the consciousness that the little seed-children had begun to grow. It was because of them the bees were made so welcome.

We can imagine the flower might feel like saying, “This is my seed-children’s birthday party; come often, dear bees, and sip my nectar and take my pollen. But be like the good fairies and bring each a gift to my seed-children.”

The bees buzzed and came and went and came and went.

Each time they took away nectar and pollen to their hives, and each time left something for the seed-children.

Do you suppose they left a cap of darkness, and a pair of seven-league boots, and a sword that always conquered, and a magic carpet that took people wherever they wanted to go, as the fairies used to do in the times when fairies were alive and came to the christenings of little children?

I do not think the bees brought any of these things to the birthday party of the seed-children.

The bees, not being real fairies, were obliged to bring what they could.

Now, the day that the pink morning-glory bloomed, a great many other morning-glories came out of their buds, and they all gave the bees a welcome.

They filled their cups with nectar and opened their boxes of snow-white pollen.

Such a feast as was spread for the bees! Blue morning-glories, and pink and purple and white ones, on all sides they stood, fresh and smiling, and invited the bees to come.

And the bees came. They went from one to the other as fast as they could. They sucked up nectar from all, and took it home and made morning-glory honey of it. And they gathered snow-white pollen from all, and took it home and made morning-glory beebread of it.

But they did not carry home all the snow-white pollen. They bore some of it as gifts to the seed-children.

The seed-children needed the pollen; they could not grow into seeds without it, and they needed the pollen from another flower, not that from their own. So the pollen the bees brought them was better far than caps or boots or carpets or any of those things the fairies used to bring to human children.

And this is why the morning-glories made the bees so welcome. They could not take their pollen to each other, for they could not leave their stems; so they employed the bees to carry it for them.

The morning-glories nodded to each other across the garden. “I will send my bee to you,” one said to another, and the bee came and left a few grains of pollen from the friendly flower. In this way the morning-glories exchanged pollen all day long, so that each had plenty of fresh neighbors’ pollen to give the seed-children.

The flowers lasted all day, from sunrise to sunset, and the nectar lasted all day, and the snow-white pollen. But when night came the bees went home to sleep, and the morning-glories, too, slept. They rolled in the edges of their corollas so that the way to the nectar cups was closed.

Next day the morning-glories did not open again. There was no more nectar in their cups and no more snow-white pollen in their anther cells. Other morning-glories came out of their buds and invited the bees, but these staid shut. Soon the corollas, faded now and no longer lovely to look at, fell off. Their work was done. They had been beautiful to show how happy they were and how lovely life was; by their beauty, too, they had brought the bees and gained the pollen they wanted to make other lovely flowers live. Now, their messages of love and happiness given, they fell off, and the pollen boxes, empty and withered, fell with them.

But they left behind life and hope, for each tiny seed had received its grain of life-assuring pollen. For only the corolla and the stamens fell. The seed-children still clung to the stem; they lay in their cradles, nicely wrapped up by the green calyx leaves. And then the little stems that held the seed-babies’ cradles turned down and hid the little cradles under the leaves.

The seed-babies grew and grew. They would soon have outgrown their cradles, only the strange thing is, the cradles grew too! They grew as fast as the seeds and kept them snug and safe.

So all summer long, until the frost came and it was time for the morning-glories to take their long winter sleep, the buds opened in the morning. All summer long the bright morning-glories filled their cups with nectar and opened their boxes of snow-white pollen for the bees. And all summer long the seed-children received their pollen and grew and grew in their cradles that grew too. But after a while the green cradles turned brown. And after another while the brown cradles opened to let the seed-children look out, and as soon as this happened every little black seed—for they had grown quite black by this time—fell out of its cradle! It did not hurt it to fall out, for it tumbled and rolled down to the earth, where, at last, the wind came and covered it with leaves, as the robins covered up the babes in the woods. And the little black seed-babies lay there as snug as seed-babies could be.

Then the snow came and spread a blanket over them, and the leaves and the snow kept them as warm as they wanted to be until springtime came and the snow went away; and the seeds began to stretch themselves and think it was time to wake up and go out and see what was going on in the big world above.

THE OVULES

When the ovules get ready to grow, the flower prepares to bloom.

All about the ovules the delicate walls of the ovary shut tightly.

The white filaments of the stamens group themselves about it; you cannot see the ovary, they stand so close to it.

Their anther cells reach halfway up to the stigma, for the white stigma stands above the anthers. The anthers and the stigma are there for the sake of the ovules.

But this is not all.

A delicate corolla of bright colors surrounds the stamens and pistil. It holds them in its white tube, and spreads the bright border out wide for the bees to see and come to the help of the ovules.

But this is not all.

The green calyx wraps its sepals about the end of the corolla tube, and when the corolla falls the calyx covers nicely the ovary and helps it protect the ovules.

But this is not all.

When the bees have been and have left their message of life, and when the corolla has faded and fallen, the stems of the flowers turn down and hide the ovary with its seedlets under the leaves.

But this is not all.

The leaves work day and night to make food for the plant, and some of it goes to the ovules. The leaves eat what is in the air and change it to food for the rest of the plant and the ovules.

But this is not all.

The roots suck food from the hard earth; they help the leaves make food.

But this is not all.

The stems carry the food from the roots to the leaves, and from the leaves to the flowers, where it gets to the ovules.

Why should so much be done for the sake of the tiny ovules, white little atoms at the heart of the flower?

Why should the flowers care? Why should they spread bright corollas and arrange these cunning protections and draw up the sap for the sake of the tiny white ovules?

Look into the ovary and see them.

Six small white things are they, so small and soft you would scarcely think they were worth much care.

But look again and think a little. They are very wonderful, although so small. They grow to the ovary by a little stem; they get the good sap to grow on through this stem. They have a little hole through their delicate coats, and through this hole the pollen enters.

When the pollen is in, the little hole closes, and the ovules feel strong and alive. They draw in the sap the leaves have made them through their little stem; they grow larger and firmer. They cease to be tiny white round things; they get two leaves with a little stem and a bud between them.

They are no longer ovules, they are seeds. They are little sleeping vines. In each black little seed is a whole vine packed away.

After a time the old vine will fade away. It will fall and turn brown. It will do no more work of changing gases and minerals into living plant. It will not again have green leaves and bear bright flowers.

But there will be more morning-glories, for the vine has stored some of its life in the seeds, and they will not fade and cease to work. All that is left of the life of the vine is in the seeds. All the morning-glories that will grow and delight us with their bright flowers next summer lie packed away in the dark seeds.

Dear little seeds, live on through the cold winter; without you we never again could see our bright morning-glories!

And that is why the vines take such care of the seeds; the whole race of morning-glories is in their keeping.

THE LEAVES.

The leaves of the morning-glory consider each other. They stand close together, but, as you see, they do not crowd.

They turn a little to one side that all may have as much room as possible, for each needs all the light and air it can get.

The leaves also have regard for the roots working away in the dark earth. Instead of being flat, they have a channel down the middle, a gutter to convey the rain water from leaf to leaf, and finally to the ground above the roots.

Some of the roots, it is true, stray away, but some stay close to the plant and suck up the rain the leaves send them.

The young leaves fold together. They are very tender, and too much cold or too much heat would harm them; and if they were open, the sun would draw away too much of their water.

So they lie close and snug, and do not open until they have grown large and strong enough to meet the bright sunshine and the cold night.

Then they open wide; they become green and do their work, which is to make food for the plant.

TO THE MORNING-GLORY.

What do you do with your pollen so white?

What do you do with your honey so sweet?

What is the use of your border so bright?

And what is the use of your calyx so neat?

THE CONVOLVULUS FAMILY.

This is a large and, on the whole, aristocratic family.

About two thousand different kinds of plants belong to it; but not so many in our climate. Perhaps not more than two hundred of the Convolvulaceæ, which is the proper name of this family, come as far North as we live.

They are rather cold-blooded people, these Convolvulaceæ, and prefer to stay in or near the tropics.

Up our way are the morning-glories, as you know. This is not their native home, though, as it is of the bloodroots, the bindweeds, and all the other wild flowers.

They were brought here from the hot part of America, near the equator. Somebody saw them, no doubt, and of course fell in love with them and sent some seeds to their friends in the North, or else took them when they went home.

Perhaps a sailor boy, landing in South America and seeing the bright flowers in the morning sunshine, thought of the New England village where he lived and which he often longed for there in that strange hot country, and perhaps he sent the seeds of these bright flowers home in a letter. But whoever may have sent the first seeds, it is certain the morning-glories received a hearty welcome in our Northern world. And they soon behaved like old settlers.

They grew cheerily where they were planted, and their seeds fell to the ground, where they managed to survive the cold Northern winter.

This must have been a great surprise to them the first time they felt it!

Then up they came in the spring just as though they were at home. They even strayed away from the people’s gardens and grew wild near the villages.

Perhaps they met their Northern cousins the bindweeds there. And what a surprise that must have been,—to come up from South America and find a member of one’s own family who had always lived in the cold North!

See how astonished the morning-glory at the bottom of the page looks as it gazes upon its cousin the bindweed!

For the bindweeds, you must know, are like the bloodroots and mandrakes and other wild flowers; they are natives of our Northern climate.

There are several kinds of bindweeds just as there are several kinds of morning-glories; but they are all, morning-glories and bindweeds alike, descended from some way-back convolvulus ancestor, just as you and your cousins and your second cousins and your third cousins and your fourteenth cousins are all descended from the same great, great, great, way-back grandfather.

There is another member of the Convolvulus Family with which we are all pretty well acquainted, and that is our little red-flowered cypress vine. You remember it, with its feathery leaves which we train over trellises in our flower gardens.

You would hardly think at first glance that it was a relative of the morning-glory. But it is, as you would discover if you looked at it very carefully and saw how much it is like a morning-glory in its way of growing, in spite of appearances.

It comes to us from Mexico, and you could hardly expect a Mexican convolvulus to be just like a South American one, the habits of the two countries are so different, you know.

Why, you would hardly know your own relatives if they had been born and brought up in South America for a few generations.

The next time you go to Mexico be sure and look out for the cypress vine, which, for all I know, may be looked upon as just a common weed there, as we look at thistles and dandelions here. We would think thistles and dandelions beautiful flowers if we had to raise them in gardens with a great deal of trouble. But because we have to dig them out of our gardens and lawns we call them weeds and detest them.

Way down South, and also in some parts of Florida, there lives a lovely convolvulus. It grows something like our morning-glories, only its leaves are all sorts of shapes, heart-shaped and halberd-shaped and angled, all together on the same vine sometimes.

Its blossoms are real flower queens, they are so large and white and fragrant. They have a tube which is three or four inches long, and a snowy border still larger. They are called bona nox, which you know very well is the Latin for “good night.”

The reason they are called this is, they do not open in the morning at all, but always at night.

People have them growing over their porches sometimes, and sometimes call them “moonflowers.”

The long white buds are twisted tightly shut in the daytime, but as soon as the sun sets, if you are watching, you will see something to astonish and delight you. For see, the bud moves a little! Then, all at once, the great white flower spreads out its corolla with a grace and serenity that thrill you. Before your very eyes the bud unfolds, and you have seen a flower blossom out! At the same moment a delicate and delightful fragrance fills the air.

But why does it bloom at night you ask.

The morning-glory has a bright bell to call the bees, but the bees do not fly at night. Does this large, fragrant white flower not care for the bees? Does it not wish pollen from other flowers?

That it does; above all things it wants pollen, and that is why it has opened this large, white, fragrant corolla.

See its tube, how long and deep. What bee could reach into that nectary?

A humming bird might, but the humming birds are all tucked up on their tiny perches sound asleep. They will never sip the nectar from those large white moonflowers.

But what am I saying? Here comes one now! Such a whirr of wings! Such a dainty bird as poises before the large sweet flower! It thrusts in its bill, but stay! that is not a bird’s bill finding its way to the bottom of those deep-placed nectaries. It is a long, slender tube such as butterflies have, and this is no bird, but a large night-flying moth.

These moths are heavier than butterflies and look very much like humming birds when darting through the air.

But if you see one at rest you know at once it is no humming bird. When the humming birds are darting about in the sunshine, these moths are hidden beneath a leaf or in some other safe place.

Perhaps they fear some bird with a taste for moths will eat them if they come out. Perhaps they love the quiet night. However that may be, as soon as it is dusk they fly out. They are hungry after their sleep through the long summer day, and dart about to find flowers that are still open.

The morning-glories, we know, are closed, for they love the bees, but the moonflowers are filling the air with perfume; their fragrance guides the moths to the white flowers that shine out in the dim light.

Now you see why the moonflowers are white and why they are fragrant. They wish to call these friendly night-moths to come and carry pollen from flower to flower.

If they were red or purple the moths could not so easily see them, and if they had no odor the moths could not smell them a long way off, and so might not come close enough to find them.

So our fair Southern friend the moonflower loves the moths and not the bees. Into its long white tube their long, slender tongues can easily reach and find the nectar, and in taking it they brush the pollen against their tongues or their faces, and when they go to another flower it is rubbed against the stigma.

The sphinx moths are the fellows with long sucking tubes that fly in the evening.

A good many members of the Convolvulus Family make us happy by their beauty, but some of them do more than this. The sweet potato, for instance, gives us something to eat. You know what it gives us, but probably you did not know the sweet potato is a convolvulus and first cousin to the morning-glory and moonflower, and that it has come to us all the way from India.

Some say its home is in the East Indies too, and when you go there, if you look in the right place, you may see it growing wild. I doubt if the wild plant bears such big potatoes though; probably they are the result of long cultivation.

Sweet Potato Vine.

It is also said that its home is in tropical America. Very likely it belongs to all these places. Some plants have a way of living all over the world at once.

How they managed to get separated so far is a problem we must try to solve some day.

The sweet potato generally lies flat on the ground and sends out long stems in all directions. Its leaves, as you can see, are more or less like morning-glory and bindweed leaves. Its flowers are also like morning-glories, though they are not so pretty. It has a habit of storing up quantities of starch and sugar in its roots. It does this, hoping to use the starch and sugar again as food in forming new shoots. But sometimes we step in and disarrange all these fine plans, for we, too, need starch and sugar as food, and we take the big sweet roots and eat them.

People plant large fields of sweet potatoes, particularly in the South. So next time you eat a sweet potato, remember it is one kind of morning-glory which has given it to you.

The sweet potatoes are no relation whatever to our common potatoes; they do not belong to the same family.

The sweet potato is not the only useful morning-glory. There is the jalap, though if you have ever made its acquaintance you may differ from me as to its value; for however useful it may be from the doctor’s point of view, it certainly possesses properties which are quite the reverse of agreeable.

It, too, forms large tubers, which it stores full of plant food, but it so happens that this particular plant food is not fit for human food. We put it to quite another use. In fact, jalap is used as a medicine. It grows very luxuriantly at Jalapa, or, as the Mexicans spell it, Xalapa, in Mexico, and that is the way it gets its name of jalap.

In spite of its very disagreeable taste and beneficial effect upon sick people, the jalap is a lovely vine with beautiful deep pink flowers.

If you saw it growing along the eastern slopes of the Mexican mountains you would never suspect it of being a medicine plant, and you might not suspect it of being a convolvulus, since its flowers are flat instead of tubular in form.

Scammony.

Several members of the Convolvulus Family have the same medicinal properties as jalap, and one in particular, whose name is scammony, is very highly esteemed.

It has an uncommonly bad taste, and its swollen roots are brought all the way from Syria and Asia Minor, not because of their bad taste, but because of their power as a medicine. The scammony, like the jalap, is a pretty plant in spite of its bad-tasting, medicinal roots.

Most of the Convolvulaceæ have a milky, bitter juice,—even our pretty, harmless morning-glories,—and in the jalap and scammony this seems to be exaggerated in quality and quantity.

A few of the Convolvulaceæ manage to make woody stems and become shrubs instead of vines.

Two of these live on the Canary Islands, and their sap, instead of being nauseous and bad-smelling, has a delicate and delicious fragrance. People take the wood from root and stems and press out the oil to be used in making perfumery.

Perhaps you know the odor of oil of rhodium. Whenever you smell it you are inhaling the fragrance from a Canary convolvulus.

It is a little surprising to find our convolvulus so widespread and so really useful in different parts of the world; but there is another side to the history of this highly respectable family. Every family, probably, has its black sheep, and not even the Convolvulaceæ can hope to have all their relatives honest and useful or beautiful.

Still, one hates to speak of the dodders. They are in the world, however, and they belong to the Convolvulus Family; there is no denying that, however much one might like to. None of the Convolvulus Family ever speak of them—at least I have never heard of their doing so.

As a rule, the members of the Convolvulus Family are aristocrats. They have descended from a long line of plants that have gone on improving. That is what makes an aristocrat in plant land,—to be descended from a long line of plants that have kept on improving. Simply to belong to an old family does not count for much in the plant world, unless that old family has kept on doing something to improve itself.

We know the Convolvulaceæ are aristocrats for one thing by their tubular corollas; it took good, wide-awake ancestors to make corollas without separate petals anyway, and particularly tubular ones. Then their color tells their history. They are often blue or purple, which is a very aristocratic color among flowers. Instead of being blue-blooded, they are blue-colored.

The moonflower is not blue, but think what a tube it has and what a large fine corolla; and then think, too, that it has learned to bloom at night so as to get fertilized by the moths, and that is a very aristocratic thing to do, I assure you.

If a flower blooms at night it is as great an honor as to wear a blue corolla. For you see it has taken as much growth in the direction of progress to acquire the night-blooming habit as to acquire a blue corolla.

The cypress vine has a red corolla, which is a good color, but not quite as advanced as blue. You see, in the beginning of the world flowers were yellow; then some became white, then pink. Probably red was the next step, then came purple, and last of all blue.

But the cypress vine has very finely divided leaves, as you remember, and in that it is ahead of the morning-glories. For in the beginning of the world, we are told, leaves were not divided, and only after a long time did some plants learn to divide them, and so increase their usefulness as leaves.

But when we come to the dodders, they have no leaves at all. The reason for this is, they do no work for themselves. The green leaves, as you know, prepare the food for the plant and work very hard to do it. If the dodders have no leaves, where do they get their food? That is just the trouble. They make other plants give it to them. They are very much like tramps, going about and living on other people. Only they are worse than tramps, for they do not say, “Please give me something to eat. I am hungry and want some starch and nitrogen compounds.” They do nothing of the sort. They catch hold of another plant and take away its juices without leave or license. So you see they are really thieves and robbers, these rascally dodders. No wonder the morning-glories are not proud of them. Not that the dodders care. It is a question whether they even know they are related to the morning-glories.