168 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 



a cluster of the sweet pink flowers in the woods ! But these 

 " odorous beds " are strewn with the pale pink bells when the 

 pyrolas come upon the scene, and the tiny creeping- twins of the 

 fragrant partridge -vine hardly make their lisps known as against 

 the more asserting presence of the pyrolas. It is hard to speak 

 in moderation of these perennial woodland plants. There are 

 four or five of them in more or less constant association, all with 

 their lily- of -the -valley breath. 



The pyrola is the perennial hostess of the groves. She does 

 the honors at all seasons. Go into the woods at any time and 

 you are sure of her. Even in the bleakest winter's day how do 

 her spires of seed-pods and her fresh, lusty leaves against the 

 snow quicken our pulses and bring back the summer ! The 

 shin-leaf, with its light green foliage of spring suggesting a tiny 

 clump of lettuce, is perhaps the most omnipresent of the group; 

 but the two pipsissewas, known as the princess pine and spotted 

 wintergreen the former with its rich green, highly polished leaf, 

 and the latter dull of surface but conspicuously veined with white 

 are perhaps the most beautiful, and with their reptilian com- 

 panions of rattlesnake hawkweed and rattlesnake plantain, form a 

 notable quartet of lowly foliaged plants. 



Who has gathered the complete posy of our fragrant wild 

 flowers ? I have not yet chanced to see a list that pretended to 

 include them all. My own list I thought complete long ago, but 

 every year adds its fresh item. Here it is up to date confined, 

 especially, to our New England flora and with apologies to the 

 slighted ones : 



FRAGRANT FLOWERS. 



HERBS AND UNDER-SHRUBS. 



Trailing arbutus (Epigaa repens). White clover ( Trifolium repens), 

 Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra Canaden- Buffalo clover ( Trifolium reflexum), 



sis). Yellow melilot (Melilotus officinalis}, 



Partridge-vine (Mitchella repens). White melilot (Melilotus alba), 



Evening primrose (GLnothera biennis), Lucern (Medicago sativd), 



Ground-nut (Apios tuberosd). Twin-flower (Linncca borealis), 



Toad-flax (Linaria vulgaris), Pine-sap (Monotropa hypopitys), 



Moth mullein ( Verbascum blattaria). False wintergreen (Pyrola rotundifolia), 



Red clover ( Trifolium pratense}. Shin-leaf (Pyrola ellipticd), 



