HARBINGER-OF-SPRING . Pepper and Salt) 



Erigenia bulbosa ( Michx. 1 Nutt. 



Early spring Ahovi- the clill's of .Starved Kock, high ahovo the Illinois 

 Woods, cliffs Ifiver and the extinct villages of the Kaskaskia in the 

 lowlands, the woods remain much as they have been for 

 many thousands of years. Xow it is the end of March. It has been cold 

 and rainy; there have been late snows and winds out (»f Medicine Hat 

 which rullled the feathers of the early hennit thrush and quelled the 

 small songs of the liist myrtle warblers on their way to the north woods. 

 A few shadbush Jlowers have come out. but little else shows any evidence 

 that March is at an end and tomorrow April will move into the woods 

 and perform the transliguration of winter into spring. 



Xow, as if the hand of April already had touched the cold ground 

 here and there, a host of tiny white flowers have opened in the pale 

 sunshine. Harbingrr-of-s])ring has arrived; now A])ril may como and 

 find the stage already set for Aprillian miracles. 



Harl)inger-of-sj)ring, a member of the Parsley familv, is found not 

 very commonly in Illinois, but in its thuscn sjjots of cool deciduous 

 woods, as at Starvi'd Kock State l*ark or Funk's (Jrove. it sjireads until 

 the gTouud for a few short .s})ring days is covered with the delicate jilants 

 and their clusters of llowers. The stem is smooth and simple, unl)ranched. 

 At the top of its imposing length of perhajjs two inches, there are two 

 or three compound, finely cut, smooth green leaves; just above them are 

 the little i-lusters of delicate white llowers. 



Tn midsummer they would be ignored. But in late March and early 

 Ajiril when few things hav(> been in bloom since the last of the. asters in 

 October, the tiny, scented white llowers of harbinger-of-sj)ring are very 

 welcome. The name Erigenia means literally, "horn in the spring." 



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