FLORA'S LEAGUE.
The gist of the matter—its botany as well as its philosciphy- is to be • found in one of the most charming and also well-
documented little books that I know : Our Vanishing Wild Flowers, written by that Etonian scholar and vegetarian idealist, Mr. Henry Salt (and published by Watts & Co. at
2s. 6d.); The book is a deed as well as a word ; for its publi- cation was intimately connected with the formation of a League pledged to fight for the preservation of our wild
flowers.— Its author and wise organiser is the well-known
physibian and botanist, Sir Maurice Abbot-Anderson ; and he is now taking very active steps to win his objects. " Flora's League " is worth the support of . every countryman, and indeed of everyone who makes rural excursions. _Its local branches multiply, and it is bending its chief energies to the •education of the coming generation. EVery elementary
schoolfinister ought to have a supply of the neat little Initton- badges,' 'and to give • occasion for a speech on wild flowers.
The enemies of wild flowers are of Many sorts, and the trouble
is that their enmity springs from affection. Quite literally they -are equally fond of flowers and their destruction. In
my experience what most often happens is that some local
zealot leti-childreti know that such and such a flower—to quote aparticular example--:Lthe• Bee &Oils,' is desirable ; and
from that moment the flower is doomed. They are picked and dug up, at first for the sake of a few pennies, but years after the first offence the tradition survives that the Bee orehis is a treasure, *thing to hunt for and run down; that the mask
and brush may be taken home. The classes of offenders are very numerous. There are numbers of rural. botanical societies
which exist for a yearly competition in the number of species that each member can collect, and if these societies are not well 'guided 'their Members are tempted to transplant the
rarities, There" 'are exchange clubs ""*Iiieh. do inllnite dam**, 'tiotigh their line of interest is wh011Y admirable. And. there are Collectors,. who are almost as serious a curse as collectors of blutches of birds' eggs. No priest of the-Inquisition.: was ever so ruthless as the engrooved collector; who prefers'
the corpse-like dust of a Hortus Siccus or a Herbarium before the lively laughter of any daffodil in a grassy meadow.- - • • * * * *
Previous page
