NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 
and in light vegetable mould forms considerable beds; the 
roots are white, slender and fibrous; it is one of our early 
May flowers, though, unless the month be warm and genial, 
it will delay its opening somewhat later. In olden times, 
when the herbalists gave all kinds of fanciful names to the 
wild plants, they would have bestowed such a name as 
“ Herbe Innocence” upon our modest little forest flower. 
LARGE BLUE FLAG—FLEUR-DE-LucE—Iris versicolor (l.). 
“* Lilies of all kinds, 
The fleur-de-luce being one.” 
—Winter’s Tale. 
This beautiful flower abounds all through Canada and 
forms one of the ornaments of our low sandy flats, marshy 
meadows and overflowed lake shores; it delights in wet, 
muddy soil, and often forms large clumps of verdure in 
half-dried ponds and similar localities. Early in spring, as 
soon as the sun has warmed the waters after the melting of 
the ice, the sharp sword-shaped leaves, escaping from the 
sheltering sheath that enfolded them, pierce the moist 
ground and appear in the form of beds of brilliant verdure 
concealing the swampy soil and pools of stagnant water 
below. Late in the month of June the bursting buds of 
rich purple begin to unfold, peeping through the spathe 
that envelopes them. A few days of sunshine and the grace- 
ful petals, so soft and silken in texture, so variable in 
shades of color, unfold: the three outer ones, reflexed, droop 
gracefully downwards, while the three innermost, which are 
of paler tint, sharper and stiffer, stand erect and conceal 
the stamens and petal-like stigmas, which lie ‘behind them 
—an arrangement so suitable for the preservation of the 
fructifying organs of the flower that we cannot fail to 
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