MAY NOTES 



different species on as many occasions. But, 

 whimsical or not, it is one of our best-loved flow- 

 ers. It links itself with our earliest recollections. 

 Fair and slender it grew beneath the pink-and- 

 white blossoms of the old orchard, among the long 

 grasses of the neighboring swamp, close to eager, 

 childish feet, along the lane. With a deeper pur- 

 ple it covered the little mossy islands in the be- 

 loved brook, that flashed and hummed its way 

 beneath spreading clusters of the hobble-bush and 

 drooping racemes of the mountain maple. But, 

 perhaps, after all, we loved it best for the fidelity 

 and tenderness with which it brightened other- 

 wise waste and barren spots. Every year these 

 blue violets sprang up in the neglected corners of 

 the back-yard. They carpeted the desolate banks 

 of the railway before it had cleared the suburbs, 

 where otherwise only the coarsest and rankest of 

 weeds made themselves at home. They ran rife 

 in the old graveyard 



— " where like an infant's smile over the dead 

 A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread." 



Blossoming at the same time as the common DogvioM 

 blue violet, I find the dog violet. This is a low, 

 branching plant, with leafy stems that easily dis- 

 tinguish it from the common blue violet, which 

 bears its flowers singly on naked stems. 



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