THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 37 
fringed Polygala, which Miss Cooper christened 
“Gay-Wings.” Others, again, are now rare 
near Worcester, and growing rarer, though still 
abundant a hundred miles farther inland. In 
several bits of old, swampy wood one may still 
find, usually close together, the Hobble-bush 
and the Painted Trillium, the Mitella, or Bish- 
op’s Cap, and the snowy Tiarella. Others still 
have entirely vanished within ten years, and 
that in some cases without any adequate expla- 
nation. The dainty white Corydalis, profanely 
called “ Dutchman’s Breeches,” and the quaint, 
woolly Ledum, or Labrador Tea, have disap- 
peared within that time. The beautiful Linnza 
is still found annually, but flowers no more; as 
is also the case, in all but one distant locality, 
with the once abundant Rhododendron. No- 
thing in Nature has for me a more fascinating 
interest than these secret movements of vege- 
tation, —the sweet, blind instinct with which 
flowers cling to old domains until absolutely 
compelled to forsake them. How touching is 
the fact, now well known, that salt-water plants 
still flower beside the Great Lakes, yet dream- 
ing of the time when those waters were briny 
as the sea! Nothing in the demonstrations of 
geology seems grander than the light thrown 
by Professor Gray, from the analogies between 
the flora of Japan and of North America, upon 
