IN THE PONKAPOAG BOGS 



1 DO not find in all my wanderings, 

 afield or afloat, a more quaintly delight- 

 ful plant than the floating-heart. In my 

 pasture world it grows in one place only, 

 - along the shallow edges of the bogs 

 of Ponkapoag Pond. I think no other 

 pond or stream in this immediate region 

 has it, and so sweetly shy is it that you 

 may pass it year after year without not- 

 ing its existence. It waits until the 

 summer has marked its meridian before 

 it ventures to send up its dainty little 

 crepe de chine petals, each fairy-like 

 bloom appearing for one day only in the 

 very throb of the mottled olive and 

 bronze heart, which is a leaf. The leaf 

 itself is barely an inch across, the ex- 



