no more, no less, making in August with their big bloom-covered 

 black berries an effective picture, against the delicate ferns at 

 their feet. 



In various open spaces throughout the woods were found the 

 smaller hairy Solomon's seal, and the fragrant star-flowered Solo- 

 mon's seal, and the wild spikenard, and the twisted stalk. 



By the tenth of May the trilliums were there, the dull red recur- 

 vatum, and the waxy cernuum, but above all the grandiflorum, 

 white and delicate and wind-blown, an epitome of the springtime. 

 One autumn we chose a sloping hillside in the deep woods and 

 planted in careful imitation of Nature's carelessness, some eight 

 hundred grandiflorum bulbs and waited. Very early the next May 

 we sought our sheltered hillside^ and there tossing in the sunlight 

 were literally hundreds of the great white trilliums with their rich 

 green triparted leaves and exquisite flowers. We hung over them 

 in rapture, as they grew here and there in little families of two or 

 three, or separately, reaching out still farther into the forest. Did 

 we pick them ? We could not bear to, as they last on the plant at 

 least ten days, turning to pink as they fade. One morning a dear 

 neighbor appeared at my door carrying a large handful of the 

 precious white trilliums. " They do not grow in our woods at all, " 

 she explained : " when I saw such a lot of them I could not resist 

 helping myself." I hope I smiled bravely. Not that I begrudged 

 her anything she might like upon the place: it was the sincerest 

 compliment she could have paid to our successful planting, but I 



wished she had coveted our roses instead. 



18. 1 } 



