SPRING AT THE CAPITAL. 193 



air. A few paces farther on, in the bottom 

 of a little spring run, the mandrake shades 

 the ground with its miniature umbrellas. It 

 begins to push its green finger-points through 

 the ground by the 1st of April, but is not in 

 bloom till the 1st of May. It has a single 

 white, wax-like flower, with a sweet, sickish 

 odor, growing immediately beneath its broad, 

 leafy top. By the same run grow water- 

 cresses and two kinds of anemones, the 

 Pennsylvania and the grove anemone. The 

 blood-root is very common at the foot of al- 

 most every warm slope in the Rock Creek 

 woods, and, where the wind has tucked it up 

 well with the coverlid of dry leaves, makes 

 its appearance almost as soon as the liver- 

 wort. It is singular how little warmth is 

 necessary to encourage these earlier flowers 

 to put forth ! It would seem as if some in- 

 fluence must come on in advance under- 

 ground and get things ready, so that when 

 the outside temperature is propitious, they 

 at once venture out. I have found the blood- 

 root when it was still freezing two or three 

 nights in the week, and have known at least 

 three varieties of early flowers to be buried 

 in eight inches of snow. 



Another abundant flower in the Rock 



