8o mature Studies in Berfcebire. 



readily. When it is six or eight inches up it opens 

 its three dark-green leaves, and a little later unfolds 

 its lovely blossom. Three pure white pointed petals, 

 alternating with three equally acute sepals, raised an 

 inch or more above three green leaves and carrying 

 twice three stamens and a three-parted pistil, that is 

 the structure of the trillium. All good things go by 

 threes with this lovely blossom ; and there was 

 reason in the inquiry of the small boy to whom I was 

 showing them on the way home, and who asked, 

 "Did you call them 'triplets'?" With the accu- 

 rate mathematics of plant-life, they certainly produce 

 all things in triplets. 



But I ought to have said that the plant I am after 

 is not the deep purple variety, the "wake-robin" 

 of the books and the country people, but the 

 "painted" trillium, so-called from the delicate pen- 

 cillings of crimson about the base of its snow-white 

 petals. If it were only to become a fad, like orchids, 

 or chrysanthemums, or the maiden-hair fern, it would 

 richly repay the enthusiasm of amateurs and the zeal 

 of cultivators. It would grace the button-holes of 

 elegant young men, and adorn the vases of charming 

 women. But it is better far, to all true nature-lovers, 

 just as it is, the child of the early spring, the orna- 

 ment of damp and boggy woods, the one spot of 

 colour and beauty where all else is sombre and plain. 

 One plucks it to a running accompaniment of bird- 

 notes. As I vibrate from side to side, reaching into 

 the underbrush, making detours round swampy spots, 



