HARBINGERS OF SPRING. 13 



Springing as it does from crevices and crannies in 

 rocky cliffs, reaching maturity and flowering as it does 

 when all nature is destitute of bloom, the first snow 

 trillium of spring carries ever with it a reminder of 

 those lines of Tennyson : 



"Flower in the crannied wall, 

 I pluck you out of the crannies; 

 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 

 Little flower, but if I could understand 

 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 

 I should know what God and man is." 



Two species of Draba, or whitlow-grass, grow in 

 central Indiana, viz., D. caroliniana Walt, and D. verna 

 Linn. They are the smallest members of the Cruciferce, 

 or Mustard family, and have their minute and hairy 

 oblong leaves clustered in a rosette close to the ground. 

 From the center of this rosette the leafless flower- 

 stalk springs. The flowers are white, ten to fifteen in 

 number, and have the parts in fours, except the 

 stamens, which are six. The plants are found on 

 dry, sandy hillsides in open fields. Rising less than 

 three inches above the ground, they bloom on the first 

 warm days of March, and their seeds are ripened by 

 mid- April. Their work is, therefore, over before that 

 of many plants is begun. They succeed in the struggle 

 for existence by being first upon the scene of action. 

 Drinking long and deep of the bright spring suiishine, 

 they soon give way to their competitors, but not before 

 their life's duty the perpetuation of their kind has 

 been fulfilled. 



On soft, springy banks one also finds in earliest 

 spring the curiously formed flower of the skunk cab- 



