214 VIRGINIA 



columbine as here displayed ; a favorite with 

 me always, for more reasons than one, but 

 never beheld in all its loveliness till now. 

 If the election could be held here, and on 

 the 1st of May, there .would be no great 

 difficulty in securing a unanimous vote for 

 Aquilegia Canadensis as the " national 

 flower." It was in its glory at the time of 

 my earlier visits, brightening the face of the 

 cliffs, not in a mass, but in scattered sprays, 

 as high as the eyesight could follow it ; 

 looking, even under the opera-glass, as if it 

 grew out of the rock itself. With it were 

 sedges, ferns, and much of a tufted white 

 flower, which at first I made no question 

 must be the common early saxifrage. When 

 I came upon it within reach, however, I saw 

 at once that it was a plant of quite another 

 sort, some member of the troublesome mus- 

 tard family, Draba ramosissima, as after- 

 ward turned out. It was wonderful how 

 closely it simulated the appearance of Saxi- 

 fraga Virginiensis, though the illusion was 

 helped, no doubt, by the habit I am in of 

 seeing columbine and saxifrage together. 



The ground in many places was almost a 

 mat of violets, three kinds of which were in 



