﻿CHAPTER TWO: Flower Hunting.

	Pete heard his father call.  This was no time for gazing into campfires.
	"Peter, come here please.  I think my leg is infected.  
	I have a bad fever", his father said in a tired voice.  
	"You must help me, son.  Some plants can help me get well.  
	Bring me willow bark, boneset, and pine sap for my leg.  
	Club moss, too, if you can.  Please hurry"!
	Pete was afraid.  Could he find the right plants?  He would have to try.  
	He hurried off into the woods.
	It was easy to find the willow bark.  
	Willows with long, skinny leaves were growing by the river. 
	Pete liked their sharp smell. He stripped off some bark and put it in his pouch.
	Finding pine sap was easy, too. Pine trees stood all around him.  
	He saw their prickly cones and smelled their green needles.  
	Pete picked lumps of sap from the bark.
	Tiny club moss plants grew under the pines. They looked like toy trees.  
	Pete remembered that club moss is a non-seed plant. It has spores instead of seeds.  
	He shook the plants over a small jar.  Soon the jar was full of spores.
	Now Pete started to hunt for the boneset plant.  He searched everywhere.  
	He was getting hungry. His feet hurt and scratches covered his arms.  
	Finally, he found a few plants that looked right. But how could he be sure?  
	He thought back to his lessons about plants.
Pete's father had told him that a good botanist carefully checks the petals, fruit, leaves, stems, and roots to find each kind of plant.  
His father always reminded Pete that there was a lot to know about plants.
	Thinking again of the lessons his father had given him, Pete felt sad.  
	Would his father be all right? Pete knew he must find the right plant. 
	His father's life depended on what he had learned. He examined a plant he thought might be boneset. It had the right kind of small white flowers. The leaves were opposite each other on the stems, too. Each leaf had a partner right across from it.  For one last test, Pete dug up the plant and looked at the root.  The root was fat and bumpy, exactly right for boneset.
As Peter left the clearing he saw a bush with something white on it.  
He went closer.  The bush had shiny green leaves.  Some leaves were turning red.  
It had large white flowers. Pete had never seen anything so pretty.
	"Father will like this", he thought.  
	He knew better than to touch a strange plant, but he studied it closely. 
	Then he returned to camp.
