Part 13

“The umbrellas are out!” cry the children, when the great green leaves of the May-apple first unfold themselves in spring. These curious-looking leaves at once betray the hiding-place of the pretty but unpleasantly odoriferous flower which nods beneath them. They lie thickly along the woods and meadows in many parts of the country, arresting one’s attention by the railways. The fruit, which ripens in July, has been given the name of “wild lemon,” in some places on account of its shape. It was valued by the Indians for medicinal purposes, and its mawkish flavor still seems to find favor with the children, notwithstanding its frequently unpleasant after-effects. The leaves and roots are poisonous if taken internally, and are said to have been used as a pot-herb, with fatal results. They yield an extract which has been utilized in medicine.

TWIN-LEAF. RHEUMATISM-ROOT. Jeffersonia diphylla. Barberry Family.

A low plant. Leaves.—From the root, long-stalked, parted into two rounded leaflets. Scape.—One-flowered. Flower.—White, one inch broad. Sepals.—Four, falling early. Petals.—Eight; flat, oblong. Stamens.—Eight. Pistil.—One, with a two-lobed stigma.

The twin-leaf is often found growing with the blood-root in the woods of April or May. It abounds somewhat west and southward.

HARBINGER-OF-SPRING. Erigenia bulbosa. Parsley Family (p. 15).

Stem.—Three to nine inches high, from a deep round tuber. Leaves.—One or two, divided into linear-oblong leaf-segments. Flowers.—White, small, few, in a leafy-bracted compound umbel.

PLATE IV

MAY-APPLE.—P. peltatum. ]

The pretty little harbinger-of-spring should be easily identified by those who are fortunate enough to find it, for it is one of the smallest members of the Parsley family. It is only common in certain localities, being found in abundance in the neighborhood of Washington, where its flowers appear as early as March.

EARLY EVERLASTING. PLANTAIN-LEAVED EVERLASTING. Antennaria plantaginifolia. Composite Family (p. 13).

Stems.—Downy or woolly, three to eighteen inches high. Leaves.—Silky, woolly when young; those from the root, oval, three-nerved; those on the flowering stems, small, lance-shaped. Flower-heads.—Crowded, clustered, small, yellowish-white, composed entirely of tubular flowers.

In early spring the hill-sides are whitened with this, the earliest of the everlastings.

SPRING BEAUTY. Claytonia Virginica. Purslane Family.

Stem.—From a small tuber, often somewhat reclining. Leaves.—Two; opposite, long and narrow. Flowers.—White, with pink veins, or pink with deeper-colored veins, growing in a loose cluster. Calyx.—Of two sepals. Corolla.—Of five petals. Stamens.—Five. Pistil.—One, with style three-cleft at apex.

So bashful when I spied her, So pretty, so ashamed! So hidden in her leaflets Lest anybody find:

So breathless when I passed her, So helpless when I turned And bore her struggling, blushing, Her simple haunts beyond!

For whom I robbed the dingle, For whom betrayed the dell, Many will doubtless ask me, But I shall never tell!

Yet we are all free to guess—and what flower—at least in the early year, before it has gained that touch of confidence which it acquires later—is so bashful, so pretty, so flushed with rosy shame, so eager to defend its modesty by closing its blushing petals when carried off by the despoiler—as the spring beauty? To be sure, she is not “hidden in her leaflets,” although often seeking concealment beneath the leaves of other plants—but why not assume that Miss Dickinson has availed herself of something of the license so freely granted to poets—especially, it seems to me—to poets of nature? Perhaps of this class few are more accurate than she, and although we wonder at the sudden blindness which leads her to claim that

—Nature rarer uses yellow Than another hue—

when it seems as though it needed but little knowledge of flowers to recognize that yellow, probably, occurs more frequently among them than any other color, and also at the representation of this same nature as

—Spending scarlet like a woman—

when in reality she is so chary of this splendid hue; still we cannot but appreciate that this poet was in close and peculiar sympathy with flowers, and was wont to paint them with more than customary fidelity.

PLATE V

SPRING BEAUTY.—C. Virginica. ]

We look for the spring beauty in April and May, and often find it in the same moist places—on a brook’s edge or skirting the wet woods—as the yellow adder’s tongue. It is sometimes mistaken for an anemone, but its rose-veined corolla and linear leaves easily identify it. Parts of the carriage-drive in the Central Park are bordered with great patches of the dainty blossoms. One is always glad to discover these children of the country within our city limits, where they can be known and loved by those other children who are so unfortunate as to be denied the knowledge of them in their usual haunts. If the day chances to be cloudy these flowers close and are only induced to open again by an abundance of sunlight. This habit of closing in the shade is common to many flowers, and should be remembered by those who bring home their treasures from the woods and fields, only to discard the majority as hopelessly wilted. If any such exhausted blossoms are placed in the sunlight, with their stems in fresh water, they will probably regain their vigor. Should this treatment fail, an application of very hot—almost boiling—water should be tried. This heroic measure often meets with success.

DUTCHMAN’S BREECHES. WHITE-HEARTS. Dicentra Cucullaria. Fumitory Family.

Scape.—Slender. Leaves.—Thrice-compound. Flowers.—White and yellow, growing in a raceme. Calyx.—Of two small, scale-like sepals. Corolla.—Closed and flattened; of four somewhat cohering white petals tipped with yellow; the two outer—large, with spreading tips and deep spurs; the two inner—small, with spoon-shaped tips uniting over the anthers and stigma. Stamens.—Six. Pistil.—One.

PLATE VI