PRAIRIE-FLOWERS OF EARLY SPRING. 87 



had recently made a similar observation in Europe on Anemone he- 

 patiea, as indicated in the " Journal of the Royal Microscopical So- 

 ciety " for April of the present year. 



The next in order of time of our early-blooming plants comes the 

 wild hazel (Corylus Americana, Walt.). This shrub would be passed 

 by by the seeker of showy blossoms. Like most of the species of its 

 order (Cupuliferce), including the oak, chestnut, beech, and horn- 

 beams, the staminate or male flowers are in drooping, cylindrical clus- 

 ters, without any showy calyx or corolla. The pistillate or female 

 flowers are elsewhere upon the same shrub, and are likewise incon- 

 spicuous. We have, therefore, in our first two flowering species, many 

 widely different characteristics. The hepatica is a small herb that 

 clings close to the earth, and may flourish under the protection that 

 the hazel-bush yields it. The liver-leaf has showy flowers, which it 

 holds up on long stalks in a conspicuous manner, and bears in each 

 blossom both the essential organs (stamens and pistils) for the produc- 

 tion of seed. The hazel has its sexes separated on the same shrub, 

 and attempts no display of attractive color or forms. These two spe- 

 cies, that bloom on almost the same early April day, have so little in 

 common that they can not be rivals in any sense. They are moving 

 along on independent lines, which for each, under its particular circum- 

 stances, are lines of least resistance. It may be that in this thought 

 we find a solution of the problem of their very early blooming. 



On April 11th two widely different plants were found in flower, 

 namely, the first of the sedges (Carex Pennsylvanica,'L.), and the 

 blood-root (Sanguinaria Canadensis, L.). The little early sedge may 

 claim some kinship with the hazel in this, that the flowers are of two 

 kinds, and the staminate or pollen-bearing are more conspicuous than 

 the inobtrusive pistillate or seed-bearing blossoms. Both the hazel 

 and sedge depend upon the capricious winds for the transport of their 

 pollen from the male to the female flowers. Darwin claimed that 

 " Nature abhors continual close fertilization " ; that is, the fertilization 

 of the ovules of a flower by the pollen of the same blossom. In the 

 hazel and the sedge we find the strongest sort of proof of such a doc- 

 trine. Close fertilization is impossible, from the simple fact that each 

 flower is unisexual. The blood-root presents us with another side of 

 the great and interesting subject of adaptations for cross-fertilization 

 which was developed by Conrad Sprengel nearly a century ago, and 

 given its present form by Darwin in 1862. What lover of flowers 

 does not know the blood-root in its home among the decaying leaves 

 along hedge-rows and out in the rich, open woods ? Who does not re- 

 call the strangely and neatly lobed palmate leaf, up through the coil of 

 which the plump bud pushes its way, and in a day has blossomed and 

 gone ? It may be some young botanists have been puzzled over the 

 "sepals 2" of the manuals, forgetting that this wide-awake plant, hav- 

 ing no further need for the firm, protective covering to the flower-buds, 



