SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 147 



groups and clusters, and bears a close resemblance 

 to the pansies of the gardens. Its two purple, 

 velvety petals seem to fall over tiny shoulders like 

 a rich cape. 



On the same slope, and on no other, I go about 

 the 1st of May for lupine, or sun-dial, which makes 

 the ground look blue from a little distance; on the 

 other or northern side of the slope, the arbutus, 

 during the first half of April, perfumes the wild- 

 wood 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 up 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 almost 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 liverwort. It is singular how little warmth is 

 necessary to encourage these earlier flowers to put 

 forth. It would seem as if some influence must 

 come on in advance underground and get things 

 ready, so that, when the outside temperature is pro- 

 pitious, they at once venture out. I have found 

 the bloodroot when it was still freezing two or three 

 nights in the week, and have known at least three 



