34 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
A week farther into April, and the Blood- 
root opens, —a name of guilt and a type of in- 
nocence. This fresh and lovely thing appears 
to concentrate all its stains within its ensan- 
guined root, that it may condense all purity in 
the peculiar whiteness of its petals. It emerges 
from the ground with each shy blossom wrapped 
in its own pale green leaf, then doffs the cloak 
and spreads its long petals round a group of 
yellow stamens. The flower falls apart so 
easily that when in full bloom it will hardly 
bear transportation, but with a touch the stem 
stands naked, a bare, gold-tipped sceptre amid 
drifts of snow. And the contradiction of its 
hues seems carried into its habits. One of the 
most shy of wild plants, easily banished from 
its locality by any invasion, it yet takes to the 
garden with unpardonable readiness, doubles 
its size, blossoms earlier, repudiates its love of 
water, and flaunts its great leaves in the un- 
natural confinement, until it elbows out the 
exotics. Its charm is gone, unless one find it 
in its native haunts, beside some cascade which 
streams over rocks that are dark with moisture, 
green with moss, and snowy with white bub- 
bles. Each spray of dripping feather-moss 
exudes a tiny torrent of its own, or braided 
with some tiny neighbor, above the little water- 
fonts which sleep sunless in ever-verdant caves. 
