A FLORAL CALENDAR. 187 



nodding, sessile and recurved, dutchman's 

 breeches, wild geraniums, hawthornes, dog- 

 woods, crab-apple and perhaps a hundred others. 

 By mid-May these are mostly gone, and only a 

 straggling few, as the cinquefoil, sweet williain, 

 blackberry, stone crop, black haw, wild grape, 

 etc., fill in the gap between the flood tides of 

 spring and those of early summer. To the latter 

 belong the clovers, trefoils, wild roses, thistles, 

 white-top, elder, mullen, skullcaps, rose-mal- 

 lows, Jersey tea and a double score of others 

 which make of June a month of floral beauty. 



Thus do plants measure the lapse of time, di- 

 vide the blossoming season of the year, whose 

 first and final offerings are snow trillium and 

 witch hazel, into periods or tides, so that the 

 botanist of experience, were he set down in na- 

 ture's garden with other calendar absent, could 

 almost tell the day of the year by her posies 

 present. 



Slowly we sauntered homeward, adding here 

 and there some specimen of interest. Among 

 them were the largest leaves and corm of the 

 Indian turnip I had ever seen. Up the immedi- 

 ate valley of the creek we took our way, fol- 

 lowing its curves and stretches. At one place 

 some so-called "sulphur springs" well up 

 through a fissure in a stiff blue clay on the very 

 brink of the stream itself and add their purer 

 waters to its current. These springs furnish an 



