THE PI.ANT WORLD 247 



truth in this statement. How much my gloom may have been due to a 

 gradual darkening of the sky, to a few snowflakes flying in the air, and 

 to a suspicious moisture in the soles of my boots, I'm not able to say, but 

 gloom is out of place even on a March day, when one is down in a bog 

 listening to the chirpings of the tree sparrows and to the noisy music of 

 the hurrying brook. Soon a glad surprise dispelled the passing cloud ; 

 in the hollows, still filled with ice and snow, I found the earliest blossom 

 of the spring. 



Who would have believed that spring flowers are already here ? Yet 

 it is true. I gathered the treasure from its watery bed. Thoreau called 

 it the "hermit of the bog " ; I wonder if you know its other names. L^et 

 me describe it, for, despite Juliet's remarks, we know there's something 

 in a name, though this by any other name would doubtless smell as sweet. 

 Its flowers appear before its leaves. Go to any swampy place in March 

 and you will find the soft, moist earth pierced by the purple spathe, 

 which encloses a cluster of the earliest flowers of spring. This spathe is 

 a beautiful, mottled, magenta envelope which is commonly taken to be 

 the flower itself. It arches over the inclosed blossoms in the form of a 

 cowl, through the opening of which appear the tiny, inconspicuous flowers 

 arranged in a round fleshy spike. The plant is very similar in plan, 

 though very different in appearance, from the Jack-in-the-Pulpit who 

 will begin sermonizing to us before many weeks. It is also a first cousin 

 to the immaculate Calla, though Calla never deigns to notice the country 

 cousin. You will scarcely believe that the fleshy spike inside the cowl 

 contains fifty or more tiny flowers, but with your magnifying glass you 

 can see that each flower has four sepals, four stamens and one pistil. 

 The flowers are closely packed in a cone-like head which early becomes 

 covered with a soft, yellowish pollen which the bees are not slow to find 

 even in early March. Along in April the green leaves appear (they are 

 scarcely visible now), growing to be one or too feet long, bright green, 

 hardy and conspicuous in the barrenness of April vegetation. They say 

 that bears eat the leaves of this acrid plant. It is probably an appetizer 

 to them as water cresses are to us. The root of this plant has a biting 

 taste. I remember when a child having a piece of the dried root grated 

 into molasses and given me for a croupy cough. I also remember the 

 odor of that dried root ; I smelled it again to-day while gathering the 

 purple cowls. The fragrance of the plant is such that if you smell it 

 once you will never forget it. It reminds you of a certain spiteful little 

 creature of the woods that one is always glad to shun for excellent reasons. 

 This first flower of the new year — the real harbinger of the spring — is 

 the Symplocarpus foetidus, but his brother hermits, when they wish to be 

 familiar, nick-name one another " Skunk Cabbage." 



This welcome pledge that spring is near is of the earth, earthy ; but 



