202 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



the diminishing light. These continue to multiply until they 

 glitter in the meads and valleys like the heavenly host at 

 midnight ; and then by degrees they slowly disappear, until 

 June scatters them from the face of the earth, as morning 

 melts away the starry lights in the firmament. 



It may seem remarkable that the earliest spring flowers 

 that come up under a frosty sky, and are often enveloped in 

 snow, should, notwithstanding this apparently hardening ex- 

 posure, exceed almost all others in delicacy. Such are the 

 anemones, the houstonia, and the bellwort, among our indig- 

 enous plants, and such the crocus, the snowdrop, and the lily 

 of the valley, among exotics. The spring flowers are like- 

 wise, for the most part, more powerfully and more sweetly 

 scented than those of other seasons. Even the aments that 

 hang from the willow, the poplar, and the sweet fern, are 

 more fragrant than the aments of the oak, the beech, and the 

 chestnut, which appear a month later. The sweet-scented 

 vernal grass, ( Anthoxayithuni odoratum) one of our earliest 

 grasses, is exceeded by no species in fragrance. Many of 

 the small flowers of spring that seem, when examined singly, 

 to be nearly scentless, are found to be very fragrant when 

 collected into bunches. I have observed this fact of some of 

 the violets, of the two-leaved Solomon's seal, and some other 

 small flowers. Though we cannot regard their superior 

 fragrance as an unexceptionable trait in the character of the 

 spring flowers, yet, as the season advances, the blossoms of 

 plants become less and less fragrant, until the fields of Autumn 

 display their myriads of gaudy flowers, that give out scarcely 

 a perceptible odor. 



In this phenomenon I think I can detect one of those 

 mysterious provisions of nature which are instituted for the 

 preservation of the species. All flowers seem to depend 

 more or less upon insects as agents in the work of their 

 fertilization. In early spring, when there are but few insects 

 abroad, they might not be able to discover the flowers, if the 

 latter did not send out into the atmosphere a strong and 

 agreeable perfume, by which the insect is guided to their 

 honey cups. The insect having entered the cup of the 



