Hepatica 7 1 



beneath the shields of green leaves somewhat 

 rusty from the winter weather, springing from 

 furry stems that are so hardy in appearance, and 

 so full of the character of the heath family to 

 which this lovely flower belongs. This creeping 

 vine may be aspiring to become a shrub, like its 

 cousins, the white-belled cassandras and pink- 

 belled andromedas of the swamps (which are even 

 now vine-like), like the blueberries and the aza 

 leas, like the kalmias, those glorious bushes we 

 call mountain laurel. All of these share the hard 

 iness and the delicacy in one of the arbutus, and 

 the kindred is not difficult to discern. If the ar 

 butus has this longing, then as its sensitive flowers 

 aspire to a more perfect state, for they are now 

 changing, botanists tell us, from self-fertilizing to 

 insect-fertilizing, as the way of evolution is, and 

 its stem would fain lift into the air, it must more 

 readily yield, as it does, to the onslaughts of 

 spoilers, and so give up the struggle with intru 

 sion. The very neighbourhood of our coarse 

 civilization affronts it, and even were it not 

 torn asunder by robbers wherever it is found, it 

 would retreat and resign its place as houses get 

 near. 



Tis the fragrance of the trailing arbutus which 

 gives it precedence in the popular esteem ; and 

 added to that, it will kindly blossom after pluck- 



