NATURE'S REALM. 
It is still early for violets, though the leaf 
pads pave many a forest corner, and by the 
middle of the month the short-stemmed yellow 
ones, with their purplish eye so suggestive of 
the pansy and possibly its original type, are to 
‘be found in abundance in many localities. By 
May the blue ones will be blooming in all their 
purple beauty on every hill and in every valley. 
Few flowers are so universally popular as the 
violet, and fewer still have so long held the 
admiration and leve of men. It is as common 
in Europe as here, and so popular that in 
France it became the flower of the Napoleons. 
Even in the early days of Greek mythology, 
2,500 years and more ago, it was a favorite 
with gods and men. Violets were created by 
Zeus for Io, it was said, and they formed the 
couch of Zeus and Hera. Truly we have royal 
precedent for lolling in the violet beds on a 
May day! Unlike the spring beauty, the 
abundance of violets in May seems to make 
them dearer to us. Every one knows the 
modest and beautiful blossom, and to every one, 
from the country boy who busies himself in the 
sacrilegious sport of seeing which ‘“ Johnny- 
jump-up” will jerk the heads off the largest 
number of others, to the city belle who dream- 
ily bends over a vase of the purple blossoms 
and thinks of the triumphs of her last party, it 
is a prime favorite. Other wild flowers of 
spring time are beautiful and win ardent ad- 
mirers, but none generally found the country 
over possesses all the elements of permanent 
popularity to so full a degree as the 
“Violets dim, 
Yet sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes 
Or Cytherea’s breath.” 
The wood anemone is another blossom of 
these April woods that charms all who know 
it. The much admired hepatica is its own sis- 
ter, though the anemone is the frailer of the 
two. It is unrivalled among spring flowers in 
the delicacy of its shadings of color. It seems 
to have caught those rare first blushings in 
pinks and purples that make the early dawn of 
a bright spring morning an inexpressible paint- 
er’s dream. Such a dawn is glory by sug- 
gestion, and the wind-flower seems to have 
awakened just in time to catch and fix those 
rich and delicate tints and assume its own 
123 
loveliness, while suggesting in the variety of 
color the bursts of summer bloom. Its 
blossoms, which the old legend poetically but 
untruthfully declares are only opened by the 
wind, hence its name, vary in color even more 
than the spring beauty. In a cloudy spring the 
tints are darker, while in a period of sunshiny 
days they become brighter and more brilliant. 
They range from almost pure white to rich, 
delicate purple, and always with a delicacy of 
shading and a harmony of color that is a de- 
light. In May there will be many of them, and 
we can gather the frail blossoms that seem to» 
shrink from the touch and wither so soon, and 
admire them to the full, for none of the later 
flowers surpass them in beauty; but never is 
its charm so great as in that happy hour when 
one comes half unexpectedly upon the first ane- 
mone of the season. Then is it loveliest. Cap- 
ping its hairy stem in simple modesty, its beau- 
ties often withheld from even the watchful eyes: 
of its admirer, the wanderer in the April woods: 
will be abundantly repaid if he find but one of 
these frail blossoms purple-tinted by the unri- 
valled pencil of Nature, or blushing pink and! 
white in confusion at the touch of even an ad- 
miring friend. 
Then there is the dandelion. Who does not 
welcome it as it blooms in the open glade? 
And the white blossom of the blood-root (.Saz- 
guinaria canadensis ), and the glory of wake- 
robin, the white trillium, that opens its single 
blossom to the sky so confidingly and seems: 
gazing upward watching perchance for the 
northward flight of the later migratory birds. 
The trillium comes like a promise of peace, and 
when, as sometimes happens, the season is for- 
ward enough, makes one of the loveliest of 
Easter flowers. Then there is the low stalk of 
the early crowfoot (Ranunculus fascicu- 
aris) with its bright yellow flowers gladden- 
ing the rocky hillsides, and perhaps not far 
from it may be found the small white blossoms 
of the saxifrage (S. virginiensis) rising on 
their clustered cyme five inches or more above 
the pad of thickish leaves and breathing out 
their faint sweetish fragrance. Down in the 
rich soil by the little brook are blooming the 
pale purple, or sometimes whitish, flowers of 
the toothwort (Dentaria laciniata), the clus- 
