Saving the Wild Seeds

With the first warm days of spring, Nature lovers are taking to the woods and fields and few return without having picked at least a few of the first attractive flowers to be discovered. Unfortunately most flowers do not take kindly to being carried for any length of time in the hand, or worn in the buttonhole, without soon presenting a sadly wilted appearance. Many will not revive if placed in water, and the paths and roadsides adjoining the cities are often strewn with large bouquets that have given little or no satisfaction to the well-meaning gatherer. Those who have room for a garden will get more enjoyment from the flowers by carefully taking up a few roots of some of the less rare kinds with a fair-sized ball of earth and transplanting for a wild flower garden.

The roots must, however, be planted in as nearly the same conditions, as to soil, shade or moisture, as that from which they were taken. If the normal soil was quite moist, an extra amount of moisture must be supplied by artificial means, or the roots replanted in a naturally wet place. Many people are setting aside from small to quite large areas for wild plant cultivation. This is the only way that any wild flowers will remain near densely populated sections, for in reality the problem of wild flower preservation has been caused largely by real estate, agricultural and manufacturing development and field and forest fires.

Fires often destroy millions of seeds and roots and until new plantings are made by the wind and by birds the ground will often present a bare appearance for quite a while. The lighter wind-borne seed which is usually the first to come up after a fire is mostly of a very weedy character, so Nature lovers should be particularly careful that any discarded matches, cigars or cigarettes are not responsible for the further destruction of our native landscape. The extensive distribution of small slips and posters on paper or cardboard bearing "The Outdoor Code" will do much towards obtaining the public cooperation, and they may be obtained from the Wild Flower Preservation Society in quantity at small cost.

Small lots of native eastern wild flower seed are also now available for the first time, and people who wish to cooperate in the movement are urged to collect additional well-matured seed of the native attractive flowered herbs, shrubs, and trees, during the season and send them to the Wild Flower Preservation Society for distribution and exchange purposes. Care should, however, be taken that enough seed is left or scattered where the collecting is done, to insure an ample supply of both flowers and seed another year. All seed must also be carefullv named and should in all cases he accompanied by a small pressed specimen of the flower with leaves in order that the name of the seed may be critically determined.