NATIVE WILD FLOWEKS 



a slender raceme; sometimes the little pedicels or flower- 

 stalks are bent or twisted to one side, so as to throw the 

 flowers all in one direction, as in the figure given in Pursh's 

 work before alluded to. 



The scape springs from a small deep tuber, bearing a single 

 pair of soft oily succulent leaves. In the white-flowered 

 species (C. Caroliniana) these leaves are placed about mid- 

 way up the stem, but in the pink (C. Virginica) the leaves 

 lie closer to the ground and are smaller and narrower, of a 

 dark bluish-green hue. Our Spring Beauties well deserve 

 their pretty poetical name. They come in with the robin and 

 the song sparrow, the hepatica and the first white violet; 

 they linger in shady spots, as if unwilling to desert us till 

 more sunny days have wakened up a wealth of brighter 

 blossoms to gladden the eye; yet the first and the last are 

 apt to be most prized by us, with flowers as well as other 

 treasures. 



How infinitely wise and merciful are the arrangements of 

 the Great Creator! Let us instance the connection between 

 bees and flowers. In cold climates the former lie torpid, or 

 nearly so, during the long months of winter, until the genial 

 rays of the sun and light have quickened vegetation into 

 activity and buds and blossoms open their stores of nutri- 

 ment necessary for the busy insect tribes. 



The bees seem made for the blossoms, the blossoms for the 

 bees. On a bright March morning what sound can be more 

 in harmony with the sunshine and blue skies than the 

 murmuring of the honey bees in a border of cloth-of-gold 

 Crocuses? What sight more cheerful to the eye? But I 

 forget. Canada has few of these sunny flowers, and no 

 March days like those that woo the hive bees from their win- 

 ter dormitories. And even April is with us only a name. 

 We have no April month of rainbows, suns and showers. We 

 miss the deep blue skies and silver throne-like clouds that 



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