
THE FLOWERS OF EARLY SPRING. 
BY REV. J. W. CHICKERING, JR. 

THERE is perhaps a nearly equal charm about the notes of 
the first robin, and the sight of the first Mayflower. It will 
be the object of this article to enumerate, with a few notes 
upon each, some of our earlier floral visitors, in wood and 
meadow, in New England. 
The list opens, not very attractively, with a plant well 
known to all, under the mal-odorous name of Skunk Cab- 
bage (Symplocarpus fetidus), but whose flower is by no 
means so familiar,save to the observing botanist, and even he 
must be on the alert to obtain this first gift of Flora, in full 
perfection of color and aroma. Early in April, or even in 
March, almost before the ice is fairly melted, may be found 
in low marshy ground, this flower, clumsy in form, repulsive 
and snaky in color, dark purple with yellowish blotches, 
and disgusting in odor; soon to be followed by the clump of 
large fleshy leaves, conspicuous during the rest of the sum- 
mer. Like Stramonium, and most other noxious and um- 
sightly weeds, it has been tried as a remedy for asthma, and 
with about as much effect. DEI 
In very pleasing contrast comes next Epigæa repens, or a 
it is sometimes miscalled Trailing Arbutus, better and more 4 
appropriately known throughout New England as the May- 
ower. 
This, among the very earliest, is also the choicest gift that 
Flora has in this latitude to offer us, alike for its beauty of : 
form and color, its delicious fragrance, and its charming - 
habit of peeping out, almost from the edge of the retreating | 
snowdrifts. To find the first bunch of Mayflowers is 1 
ambition of many a boy and girl, as well as not a few child- — 
ren of larger growth. The finest specimens ever seen bY | 
the writer were from a mountain in Camden, Maine. It has 
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