36 THROUGH GLADE AND MEAD. 
and blossom as they developed slowly in the warm 
spring days, until I felt that I knew them all and that 
they waited my coming. But after a time the trees 
were sacrificed to the needs of their owner, and the sun- 
light streaming in caused the little brook to shrink, yet 
the purple trilliums do not cease to gladden the spring 
with their beauty. They bloom now without me, just 
as for ages rare tropical orchids have bloomed in the 
depths of South American and Malayan forests unseen. 
By the middle of May the other two species of this 
genus found in this county appear almost together. 
They are the nodding trillium or wake-robin (77rilium 
cernuum, L.), which hides its flowers beneath the leaves 
by curving its stem downward, and the loveliest of the 
three, the painted trillium (Zrillium crythrocarpum, 
Michx.), the Trinity Flower of Mrs. Ewing’s charming 
story. The trilliums have a striking family resem- 
blance, and are easily distinguished from the other 
members of their order, the Liliacez, by the fact that 
the six parts of the perianth are divided into two groups 
of different colors, which are naturally called sepals and 
petals, and that the leaves are netted-veined. 
When the painted trillium is in bloom it is time to 
look for the unfolding broad cymes of the earliest of 
our viburnums, the hobble-bush (Veburnum lantan- 
oides, Michx.). Its leaves are symmetrical and hand- 
some, larger than those of any other native shrub. It 
