But bumblebees, its chief
benefactors, and others may not have done their duty by the
flower; what then? Why, the stigmas in that case finally bend
backward to reach the left over pollen, and fertilize themselves,
obviously the next best thing for them to do. How one's reverence
increases when one begins to understand, be it ever so little of,
the divine plan!
"Probably the most striking blue and purple wild flowers we
have," says John Burroughs, "are of European origin. These
colors, except with the fall asters and gentians, seem rather
unstable in our flora." This theory is certainly borne out in the
case of the RAMPION, EUROPEAN, or CREEPING BELLFLOWER (C.
rapunculoides), now detected in the act of escaping from gardens
from New Brunswick to Ontario, Southern New York, Pennsylvania,
and Ohio, and making itself very much at home in our fields and
along the waysides. Compared with the delicate little harebell,
it is a plant of rank, rigid habit. Its erect, rather stout stem,
set with elongated oval, hairy, alternate leaves, and crowned
with a one-sided raceme of widely expanded, purple-blue bells
rising about two feet above the ground, has little of the
exquisite grace of its cousin.
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