— 
172 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 
over, make up in quantity what they lack in quality—the chestnut, 
stramonium, meadow-rue, skunk-cabbage, and carrion-flower—the 
latter of which, with its clambering green brier and beautiful glossy 
heart-shaped leaves and spherical clusters of fringy flowers, must 
be seen only to be enjoyed, to speak paradoxically. In other words, 
it is more enjoyably viewed from the windward, otherwise we may 
readily appreciate the expressive impeachment of the discriminat- 
ing little girl who gave it the name of the “Oh phew! flower.” 
Of the blossom odors which possess the breeze, perhaps the 
wild-grape is the most redolent, its powerful mignonette-like fra- 
grance often filling some secluded bower in the woods like incense. 
The pretty chime of bells of the deerberry ring out a sweet cur- 
few in the twilight woods, and the fringy white spire of the blaz- 
ing-star, already mentioned, or devil’s-bit, as it is also called — 
though the gods only know why—deserves credit for a sweet al- 
mond-like perfume which I have never seen credited. 
How have we hypercritical sticklers for truth stumbled upon 
that shy “yellow violet” of Bryant’s verse! 
He apostrophizes it as the avant-courriére of spring: 
“Of all its train the hands of Spring 
First plant thee in the watery mould.” 
He opens the season of Flora with this flower. According to 
him the gentle goddess takes her first vernal peep through the 
“gentle eye” of the yellow violet, even braving 
“the snowbank’s edges cold,” 
and her last—as she “nods” to sleep—through the “sweet and 
quiet eye” of the fringed gentian, of which he says: 
“Thou waitest late and com’st alone 
When woods are bare and birds are flown, 
And frosts and shortening days portend 
The aged year is at an end.” 
