24 THE EARLY FLOWERS. 



the valley, the white Bethlehem star, and the blue-eyed 

 periwinkle. The heath is neither in our fields nor in 

 our gardens. The flowers of classic lands and many plants 

 which are sacred to the muse are not in the fields and 

 valleys of the new continent. Our native flowers, for the 

 most part, are rendered sacred only by the recollections 

 of childhood, not by poetry or romance. The anemone, 

 the houstonia, and the bellwort look up to us from their 

 mossy beds full of the light of the happy days of our 

 youth; but the flowers which have been sung by the 

 Grecian or Eoman muse belong to other climes, and 

 our fields do not know them. 



