litary white
blossoms, blooms in cheerful companionship with its fellows, and the more
sterile parts of the hillside are snowed with the white plumes of the
plantain-leaved everlasting. Downy yellow violets and the common blue
violets grow everywhere and down on the sand near the river the birdfoot
violet, with its quaintly cut leaves and handsome blossoms grows
abundantly for the children who love to gather the "sand violets." On the
bottom which was flooded in March the satiny yellow flowers of the marsh
buttercup shine and the beautiful green of the uplands is spotted with
the pure gold of the buttercup. There is no longer need to be satisfied
with a few pretty flowers. May scatters her brightest and best in
abundance. On the rocky slopes the wild ginger shows its red-brown,
long-eared urns, the white baneberry its short white plumes, the
branchlets of the bladdernut are breaking into white clusters and
columbine soon will "sprinkle on the rocks a scarlet rain" as it did in
Bayard Taylor's time, although the "scarlet rain," like that of the
painted cup in the lowlands, grows less and less each year. The white
glory of the plum thickets at its height and the hawthornes, whose young
leaves have been a picture of pink and red, will soon break into blossom
and vie with the crabapple thickets in calling attention to the beauty of
masses of color when arranged by the Master Painter.

* * * * *

The carpet of the woodlands grows softer and thicker, and more varied
each day. Ferns and brakes are coming thickly. The flowers grow more
splendid. The large, wholesome looking leaves of the blue bell are a
fitting setting for the masses of bloom which show pink in the bud, then
purple, and lastly a brilliant blue. Jack-in-the-pulpits make us smile
with keen pleasure as memories of happy childhood days come crowding
thickly upon us. The pretty pinnate leaves of the blue-flowered
polemonium are sufficient explanation for the common name Jacobs-ladder,
even though that name does not properly belong to our species. The purple
trilliums, like the Dutchman's breeches, felt the effects of the many
April and early May frosts but now they are coming into their beauty.
Great colonies of umbrella-leaved May-apple are breaking into white
flowers. The broad, lily-like leaves of the true and false Solomon's seal
are even more attractive than their blossoms. Ferns, bellwort, wild
sarsaparilla, all help to soften o