LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 3 1 



bogs the pink-hooded spathes which sheltered the 

 round-head clusters of flowers. The bunches of 

 young violet leaves beside them are doing their 

 work differently : the blossoms come after the leaf, 

 and are strangely unlike their neighbors to the 

 nostrils of humanity ; yet in the great economy 

 of Nature " she knows only vegetable life existing 

 to a universal and not to a particular end." The 

 o&ensive fcetidus is as good in her eyes as the sweet- 

 scented cuouUata, and, like the tender mother she 

 is, she nourishes each, and knows not the difference 

 between the repulsive child and the lovely blue- 

 eyed flower. The first leaves of the Cardamine 

 (Spring Cress), another inhabitant of the bog, have 

 grown two or three inches already. I pull up a 

 cluster of these leaves and learn the secret of its 

 confidence and smartness. " Stems upright from a 

 tuberiferous base," says Grey ; and this peculiarity 

 distinguishes it from all other species in the genus. 

 These small potato-shaped tubers at the end of the 

 stem laid by so much starch and plant food the 

 previous year that it has now a great advantage 

 over the annuals and laggard perennials that slowly 

 germinate from fibrous roots or seeds. 



On the dry banks and knolls a few of the earliest 

 perennials, however, have been willing to show their 



