20 AMONG THE WILD-FLOWERS 



We have one flower which grows in vast 

 multitudes, yet which is exquisitely delicate 

 and beautiful in and of itself: I mean the 

 houstonia, or .bluets. In May, in certain parts 

 of the country, I see vast sheets of it; in old, 

 low meadow bottoms that have never known 

 the plough, it covers the ground like a dull 

 bluish or purplish snow which has blown 

 unevenly about. In the mass it is not espe- 

 cially pleasing; it has a faded, indefinite sort 

 of look. Its color is not strong and positive 

 enough to be effective in the mass, yet each 

 single flower is a gem of itself. The color of 

 the common violet is much more firm and pro- 

 nounced; and how many a grassy bank is made 

 gay with it in the mid-May days ! We have a 

 great variety of violets, and they are very 

 capricious as to perfume. The only species 

 which are uniformly fragrant are the tall 

 Canada violet, so common in our Northern 

 woods, — white, with a tinge of purple to the 

 under side of its petals, — and the small white 

 violet of the marshy places; yet one summer I 

 came upon a host of the spurred violet in a 

 sunny place in the woods which filled the air 

 with a delicate perfume. A handful of them 

 yielded a perceptible fragrance, but a single 

 flower none that I could detect. The Canada 

 violet very frequently blooms in the fall, and 

 is more fragrant at such times than in its earlier 

 blooming. I must not forget to mention that 

 delicate and lovely flower of May, the fringed 

 polygala. You gather it when you go for the 



