1892.] ESSAYS. 141 



Thus it is with the arbutus, the sweet gale, cassandra, and 

 rhodora. 



Of the herbaceous plants the skunk-cabbage is first in bloom, 

 and its grotesque spathe may often be gathered while snow and 

 ice are yet on the ground. Of striking character, it has about 

 it nothing of sentiment, and is cared for only l)y botanists. 



The first real spring flower, and to many the most interest- 

 ing, is the hepatica or liver-leaf. Among the brown leaves in 

 open oak woods appears this tender sylph, pale blue, white, or 

 delicate reddish purple. So suddenly and stealthily has it come 

 that we are not aware of its presence but under a certain im- 

 pulse we look for it and find it. This influence is, may be, the 

 distant partridge drumming his spring reveille ; or a bevy 

 of velvety butterflies flitting here and there among the naked 

 branches ; or the buzzing of flies and bees about the maple sap 

 which drips from axe-wounds made in winter. This is the mark 

 of April. 



A little later comes the wind-flower with its slender stalk and 

 drooping head, and if fortunate, you may chance upon some 

 specimens of viola rotundifolia, the round-leaved, yellow violet 

 of Bryant. I have in mind a secluded glen among dark hem- 

 locks and gray ash trees, through which flows a sparkling 

 brook, fringed with yellow cowslips and the springing stems of 

 senecio and Indian poke. Ferns, which by and by will reach 

 to the hips, are throwing up their graceful crooks, and not far 

 away on a sloping bank, responding to the slanting rays of the 

 vernal sun, a host of spring-beauties have taken full possession. 

 For years the secret of their home has been zealously guarded 

 by a slowl}"^ increasing few ; but their long underground stems 

 and subterranean tubers will preserve these frail creatures from 

 the danger of extirpation. Nowhere else are such erythron- 

 iums and tall yellow violets as can be found in these same woods, 

 and in early summer they are worthily succeeded by the 

 purple cypripedium and the red Turk's Cap lily. All this 

 wealth of floral display originates in the happy combination of 

 light, warmth, moisture and fertile soil, which alone enables the 

 rare plants to maintain a flourishing existence. Another local- 

 ity abounds with catnip and pigeon-berry ; and the rampant 



