Shrubbery, Plantation, and Wood 83 



to be learnt about flowers in the woods of the world, 

 whether in those set out by man for his use, or in the 

 great and more stately woods of the earth mother, 

 as, say, in those of the mountains of California, a garden 

 woodland with lovely Evergreens set below great 

 Pine trees, and on the ground lace-work of delicate 

 Ferns and a thousand flowers. 



Here is a letter from an observer of what goes on in 

 the woods of New England. 



' I go into the woods in the spring-time, and find them 

 carpeted with Dog's-tooth Violets, Wood Anemones, blue 

 and purple Hepaticas, Spring Beauty, Trillium, Blood-root, 

 Star-flowers, Solomon's Seal, Gold Thread, trailing Arbutus, 

 and a host of pretty little flowers, all bright, arising from 

 their bed of decaying grass and tree leaves, and many of 

 them in perfection, too, before a tree has spread a leaf; 

 nourished and sheltered by their tree friends. When their 

 petals drop and their leaves are mature, the trees expand 

 their leafy canopy and save the little nurslings from 

 a scorching sun. And early as the earliest, too, the out- 

 skirts of the woods and meadows are painted blue and 

 white with hosts of Violets and speckled everywhere with 

 Bluets, or little Innocents, as the children call them. 

 Woodsias, tiny Aspleniums, and other Ferns are unfolding 

 their fronds along the chinks among the stones ; the common 

 Polypody is reaching over blocks and boulders, and even the 

 exposed rocks, with their rough and Lichen-bearded faces, 

 are beautiful. Every nook and cranny among them, and 

 every little mat of earth upon them, is chequered with the 

 flowery print of the Canada Columbine, the Virginia 



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