A BUNCH OF HERBS 



mens, and failed to find one that was so. 

 Some seasons the sugar maple yields much 

 sweeter sap than at others ; and even indi- 

 vidual trees, owing to the soil, moisture, 

 etc., where they stand, show a great differ- 

 ence in this respect. The same is doubtless 

 true of the sweet-scented flowers. I had 

 always supposed that our Canada violet — 

 the tall, leafy-stemmed white violet of our 

 Northern woods — was odorless, till a cor- 

 respondent called my attention to the con- 

 trary fact. On examination I found that, 

 while the first ones that bloomed about 

 May 25 had very sweet-scented foliage, 

 especially when crushed in the hand, the 

 flowers were practically without fragrance. 

 But as the season advanced the fragrance 

 developed, till a single flower had a well- 

 marked perfume, and a handful of them 

 was sweet indeed. A single specimen, 

 plucked about August i, was quite as fra- 

 grant as the English violet, though the per- 

 fume is not what is known as violet, but, 

 like that of the hepatica, comes nearer to 

 the odor of certain fruit-trees. 



It is only for a brief period that the blos- 

 soms of our sugar maple are sweet-scented ; 

 the perfume seems to become stale after a 

 131 



