66 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
its time of flowering. Over the meadows spread 
the regular Chinese pagodas of the equisetum 
(horse-tail or scouring-rush), and the rich, coarse 
vegetation of the veratrum, or American helle- 
bore. In moist copses the ferns and osmundas 
begin to uncurl in April, opening their soft coils 
of spongy verdure, coated with woolly down, 
from which the hummingbird steals the lining 
of her nest. 
The early blossoms represent the aboriginal 
epoch of our history: the bloodroot and the 
Mayflower are older than the white man, older 
perchance than the red man; they alone are 
the true Native Americans. Of the later wild 
plants, many of the most common are foreign 
importations. In our sycophancy we attach 
grandeur to the name “exotic ;”’ we call aristo- 
cratic garden flowers by that epithet ; yet they 
are no more exotic than the humbler compan- 
ions they brought with them, which have be- 
come naturalized. The dandelion, the butter- 
cup, chickweed, celandine, mullein, burdock, 
yarrow, whiteweed, nightshade, and most of 
the thistles, —these are importations. Miles 
Standish never crushed them with his heavy 
heel as he strode forth to give battle to the 
savages ; they never kissed the daintier foot of 
Priscilla, the Puritan maiden. It is noticeable 
that these are all of rather coarser texture than 
