In Honor Of John Clayton

The planting of wild flower gardens is becoming very popular in the United States. When this is done from seed or from roots, and not at the expense of exterminating rare species from some other locality, it is to be encouraged. Few nurserymen supplying wild plants, however, are propagating any material in their nurseries or using care to leave sufficient plants to maintain a normal supply. For example, only one seedsman in southern California can supply even a fair variety of wild flower seeds, and these are rarely adapted for growth in northern and eastern states. The idea has been long prevalent that plants with bulbous roots, such as Jack-in-the-pulpit, spring beauty and dog's-tooth violet, are safe from extermination. In most cases, however, these bulbs serve only as a food supply to enable the plants to make new growth in the spring, usually being absorbed in the process.

The leaves are the essentials to storing up of food supply and the picking of them with the flowers spells the doom of the plant. They should be left where Nature planted them. Colored pictures of flowers are in great demand both by children and adults. If they show the flowers in their natural surroundings, they have an added educational value in creating a desire to see, study and preserve the flowers in their homes. A series of twelve eastern wild flowers issued on post cards in colors about a year ago proved so popular that with very little effort one hundred and forty-four thousand were disposed of in six months and created considerable demand for a similar series from other parts of the country.

The American Nature Association is cooperating to extend the first series with the colored pictures herewith. These, and those to follow, will be available separately on sheets and in sets of six separate cards. It is planned to include southern and western flowers. While nearly five thousand very excellent habitat photographs of wild flowers are available for the series, there is a scarcity of good habitat photographs of either the common species or those in need of protection, from the South and West. The series will not necessarily be confined to flowers in danger of extermination but will include the commoner and more popular attractive species that can be picked more or less freely, and which are of special interest to teachers for class use.

All will be accompanied by notes on the distribution, habitat, lore, and economic uses, if any. Those selected for the first series are: The Spring Beauty, (Claytonia virginica), is sometimes called May, or grass-flower, and is found from March to May in most deciduous open woods and fields from Nova Scotia to Saskatchewan and south to Georgia and Texas. There are about twenty species natives of North America ranging west to British Columbia and California and they belong to the Purslane family. The first part of the scientific name is in honor of John Clayton, an English botanist who settled in Virginia.

By: davidbunch

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