^be Stor^ of tbe Stem 41 



stamens, the catkins will be tassels of fine floss, also 

 covered with golden powder. Nature proudly calls 

 them flowers, and is as vain, no doubt, of these first 

 little nurslings of the year as she is of iris, or roses, 

 or sunflowers. 



Perhaps if we have gone wandering along by 

 some February brook Ave have come at last to a low, 

 level land where the brook has so often overflowed 

 that it has almost created a swamp. There are tus- 

 socks of grass and plenty of prostrate, nearly de- 

 cayed, moss-covered trunks to walk upon. Yonder 

 we see a large, reddish purple cone, perhaps several. 

 Let us go close and admire these plants the more 

 the less we touch them. " Hermits of the bog," 

 good Thoreau called them, and Avrote that they 

 were a lesson in cheery courage to all grumblers. 

 This thick, lurid bud is a great, fleshy leaf-like 

 spathe. It is wrapped together much as a girl 

 wraps a shawl or large kerchief over her head, with 

 a point hanging down above her brow. This coarse, 

 purple, mottled spaxhe looks very little like the 

 snowy hood of an arum, but the two plants are 

 cousins. There are hoods and hoods, the dark, 

 torn, soiled hood of a crossing-sweeper, and the 

 dainty, fluffy, white hood in which Miss goes to 

 ball or opera. In Italy plants very like our " bog 

 hermit" are called by the people capuchins, because 



