160 SPRING AT THE CAPITAL. 



bloodroot is very common at the foot of almost every 

 warm slope in the Rock Creek woods, and, where the 

 wind has tucked it up well with the coverlid of dry 

 leaves, makes its appearance almost as soon as the 

 liverwort. It is singular how little warmth is neces- 

 sary to encourage these earlier flowers to put forth ! 

 It would seem as if some influence must come on in 

 advance underground and get things ready, so that 

 when the outside temperature is propitious, they at 

 once venture out. I have found the bloodroot when it 

 was still freezing two or three nights in the week ; and 

 have known at least three varieties of early flowers to 

 be buried in eight inches of snow. 



Another abundant flower in the Rock Creek region 

 is the spring beauty. Like most others it grows in 

 streaks. A few paces from where your attention is 

 monopolized by violets or arbutus, it is arrested by the 

 claytonia, growing in such profusion that it is impos- 

 sible to set the foot down without crushing the flowers. 

 Only the forenoon walker sees them in all their 

 beauty, as later in the day their eyes are closed, and 

 their pretty heads drooped in slumber. In only one 

 locality do I find the ladies'-slipper, — a yellow va- 

 riety. The flowers that overleap all bounds in this sec- 

 tion are the houstonias. By the ist of April they are 

 very noticeable in warm, damp places along the borders 

 of the woods and in half-cleared fields, but by May 

 these localities are clouded with them. They become 

 visible from the highway across wide fields, and look 

 like little puffs of smoke clinging close to the ground. 



