MAY NOTES 



walls and makes itself at home along the public 

 highway. 



At the same time, and in much the same soil and 

 region as harbors the bird-foot violet, we look for 

 the bright flowers of the wild-pink. These never ivud-pink 

 seem to me more attractive than when they flash 

 into sight as we drive or travel by rail. In the 

 hand they lack the delicacy of finish and detail 

 which we find in so complete and satisfactory a 

 flower as the violet. 



Two distant relations of the early saxifrage, the 

 foam-flower and the mitrewort, are abundant in 

 the May woods. The first is well named. Its 

 small white flowers are massed in soft clusters 

 which spot the woods like flecks of foam. Its Foam- 

 lobed, heart-shaped leaves spring direct from the „,7^or/ 

 root, with the occasional exception of one or two 

 leaves which rarely appear upon the stem. But 

 the delicate, crystal-like blossoms of the mitre- 

 wort, so small that we need a microscope to see 

 them properly, are more suggestive of snow-flakes 

 than of mitres. Their slender, wand-like clusters 

 are easily overlooked among their more showy 

 companions. The root-leaves of the mitrewort 

 are not unlike those of the foam-flower. The two 

 stem-leaves are opposite. 



Perhaps we look upon certain plants as rarities 

 because we did not happen to know them in child- 



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