Some Flowers of Middle Tennessee. 79 



lawns, the Dead Nettles are successfully coping with the Chickweed. 



But April showers are coming to awaken the sleeping beauties. 

 The sly Violet slowly pushes itself out from its coverlet of leaves 

 and, bashfully hanging its head, peeps around to see whether its 

 cousins, the White Violet, the Yellow Violet, or the Wild Pansy have 

 awakened yet. The Yellow Fumitory, not being so bashful, holds her 

 yellow head up proudly above her lacy leaves. She is not ashamed 

 of being a woodland flower. Bold and sturdy stands Jack in the 

 Pulpit nearby. The little Rue Anemone lives in the shelter of a 

 ravine, but other plants love the banks of the more open meadow 

 streams. There the waxy, yellow spots in the grass show where the 

 Buttercup has caught the gold of the sunbeam in its chalice. The 

 little tiny-flowering Draba Verna strives to find some uncaptured 

 sunbeams in its grassy home. Many dainty inconspicuous flowers 

 are passed over unnoticed or disdainfully called weeds. Among 

 these outcasts, Spreading Chervil and Corn Cromwell prefer the 

 edges of cultivated fields, while the Small-flowering Buttercup pre- 

 fers the lawns or woods. 



By the middle of April, Shepherd's Purse appears in the meadows 

 and lawns, and May Apples in the woodland with their waxy-white 

 flowers hidden under their leaf umbrellas, contrasting with the 

 small, unprotected flowers of Nemophila. Blue bells and Blue Phlox 

 now have largely taken the place of the Rue Anemone and Blood- 

 root in the damp woodland and blue Phacelias and False Wild On- 

 ions have taken possession of the rocky glades. The tiny, pinkish- 

 white flowers and long, slender seed pods of the Cranebill are now 

 becoming plentiful on the lawns. The Early Saxifrage and Stone- 

 crop in the crevices of rock ledges help to beautify and prepare a 

 foothold for other plants. Certain of our early spring flowering 

 plants are restricted to the siliceous soil of the hill tops. The sticky, 

 red flowers of the Catchfly, the large blue and purple Bird's Foot 

 Violet, the delicate little Bluett, the fragrant trailing Arbutus, the 

 white, and pink, and red Azalias (wrongly called honeysuckles by 

 the mountaineers), and the Wild Columbine are the most interesting 

 of these. But perhaps the most beautiful of our spring flowers is that 

 group that grows best in damp, rich woodland. The white Shooting 

 Star, Jacob's Ladder, Dutchman's Breeches, and the Large-flowering 

 Trillium all belong here. We find the Blue Oxalis in more open, 

 dry woodland, but generally not in as dry, rocky places as the 

 Lousewort, nor in as damp situations as the Smooth Oxalis. Bur 



