THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 39 
alien blooms. It is very available for house- 
hold decoration, with its four great, creamy 
petals, — flowers they are not, but floral invo- 
lucres, — each with a fantastic curl and stain at 
its tip, as if the fireflies had alighted on them 
and scorched them; and yet I like it best as it 
peers out in barbaric splendor from the delicate 
green of young Maples. And beneath it grows 
often its more abundant kinsman, the Dwarf 
Cornel, with the same four great petals envel- 
oping its floral cluster, but lingering low upon 
the ground,—an herb whose blossoms mimic 
the statelier tree. 
The same rich, creamy hue and texture show 
themselves in the Wild Calla, which grows at 
this season in dark, sequestered watercourses, 
and sometimes well rivals, in all but size, that 
superb whiteness out of a land of darkness, the 
Ethiopic Calla of the conservatory. At this 
season, too, we seek another semi-aquatic rar- 
ity, whose homely name cannot deprive it of a 
certain garden-like elegance, the Buckbean 
(Menyanthes trifoliata). This is one of the 
shy plants which yet grow in profusion within 
their own domain. I have found it of old in 
Cambridge, and then upon the pleasant shal- 
lows of the Artichoke, that loveliest tributary 
of the Merrimack, and I have never seen it 
where it occupied a patch more than a few 
