HABITS OF THE TWIN FLOWER. 
By Elsie ^Murray. 
"Beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds 
The slight Linnaea hangs its twin-born heads." 
quotes 'Mrs. Dana; and there is more about the "deep, cool, 
mossy woods of the North'' that are its favored haunts. Ever 
since I first read those lines I have been looking for the Linnaea 
in the deepest, coolest, mossiest woods I know. I suppose it is 
the irony of Fate, that in all the twenty odd square miles thus ex- 
plored, I should have found it by dusty roadsides only, in some 
dozen different places—and by the merest chance at that—with 
seldom even a remnant of woodland behind it, to form the back- 
ground, fancy had pictured. 
Once found, however, it may easily be forgiven the most pro- 
saic surroundings. Surely the favor of the great Linnaeus was 
not misplaced in this charming little flower, with its tiny drooping 
bells, whose downy rose-pink lining and w^hose delicate helitrope 
odor one must nevertheless, bend low to notice and appreciate. 
My acquaintance with the Linnaea in my own locality— a river 
county in Northern Pennsylvania, where it had long been pro- 
claimed either extremely rare or extinct— runs back a few years 
only. Some years ago I discovered, in an old herbarium that I 
had collected on the nearby hills in my childhood, a. single spray 
of what proved to be the highly prized Linnaea. From that hour 
vague recollections of shadowy woods where as children we tore 
up great mats of the tiny creeper to weave into fairy wreaths, have 
haunted me, and June after June I have searched diligently, to 
find it at last by pure accident some three or four years ago, 
along one of the roadsides before mentioned. 
Such a brief acquaintance hardly affords a basis for the explana- 
tion of a fact in twin flower's life history that has recently come 
under my notice. During the second week of September, 1902, 
the Linnaea, in at least two spots several miles apart in my county, 
indulged itself in a second season of blooming. In so doing, did 
it obey a definitly fixed habit, or did it yield to an unusually favor- 
able season, and double its annual output of flowers ? About the 
same time, the Cornus paniculata and Houstonia caeridea also. 
