"THE LEAFY MONTH OF JUNE" 



said to belong to the Arethusa may be owing 

 only to my tardiness, for I have never found her 

 till some time after her legitimate blossoming 

 season. The remoteness of her haunts has put 

 her usually out of my reach, and she still remains 

 an incentive to greater punctuality next year, and 

 a stimulant to the eagerness aroused by each ap- 

 proaching spring. 



Another of the many fascinating inhabitants of 

 the cranberry-swamps is the pitcher-plant. In Pitcher- 

 Maine I found it in great quantities budding and • an 

 in full bloom on June 14th of this year, which 

 means that farther south it was due one or two 

 weeks earlier. At this time all the flowers were 

 hanging their heads, showing only the lower sur- 

 faces of their sepals, "a shiny leather-red or 

 brown-red " in color, " looking as if newly 

 varnished, very rich and pleasant to the eye," 

 writes Thoreau. When examined more closely, 

 the inside of the sepals are seen to be green. The 

 petals are red and extremely delicate in texture, 

 suggesting " a great, dull-red rose." At this early 

 stage of the plant's development the only mature 

 leaves seem to be those left over from the pre- 

 vious year, looking rusty and worn outside, but 

 perfectly water-tight, filled to the brim with water 

 in which float the bodies of many drowned in- 

 sects. 



89 



