STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
cast their fleeting shadows over the tender springing grass 
and grain; we have no mossy lanes odorous with blue violets, 
and our April flowers are, comparatively speaking, few, and 
so we prize our early violets, hepaticas and spring beauties. 
We miss the turfy banks studded with starry daisies, pale 
primroses and azure bluebells. 
In the warmth and shelter of the forest vegetation appears. 
The black leaf-mould, so light and rich, quickens the seedlings 
into rapid growth, and green leaves and opening buds follow 
soon after the melting of the snows of winter. The starry 
blossoms of the spring plants come forth and are followed 
by many a lovely flower, increasing with the more genial 
seasons of May and June. 
Our May is bright and sunny, more like to the English 
March; it is, indeed, a month of promise—a month of many 
flowers. But too often its fair buds and blossoms are nipped 
by frost, and “ winter, lingering, chills the lap of May.” 
INDIAN TuRNIP—Arisema triphyllum (Torr.). 
(PLATE VII.) 
‘Or peers the arum from its spotted veil.”—Bryant. 
There are two species of Arum found in Canada, the 
larger of which is known as Green-dragon (A. Dracon- 
tium); the other is known by the familiar name of Indian 
Turnip (A. triphyllum or A. purpureum). 
These moisture-loving plants are chiefly to be found in 
rich black swampy mould, beneath the shade of trees and 
rank herbage, near creeks and damp places in or about the 
forest. 
The sheath that envelopes and protects the spadix, or 
central column which supports the clustered flowers and 
fruit, is an incurved membranaceous hood of a pale green 
color, beautifully striped with dark purple or brownish- 
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