of
border plant evidently trying to leave the woods, but still bound to it.

"If in your yard there happens to be a big old fatherly tree or a
decaying stump, plant wind-flowers all about it. You may make the
flowers feel that they are on the edge of the woods.

"While I have numbered bloodroot among May flowers, it often does appear
in April, and before the wood anemone. The silvery, white blossom pushes
its head above the leaves in a fine fashion. They are sensitive flowers,
closing partly in cloudy weather, and actually dropping to pieces in a
rainstorm or under severe winds. The leaves are large, rather coarse,
but pretty with their light under surfaces. The stems have tinges of red
on them, a dark red sap in the roots. These roots bleed when disturbed.
The Indians used to stain their faces with this orange sap-blood. You
will find bloodroot growing in rich soil either in open woods or on
rocky slopes.

"In a nice, rich, moist place put a few Jack-in-the pulpits. This flower
is much like a child's jack-in-the-box. It is so different from most of
our plants that it has the effect of the joker in a pack of cards. Push
back the flap over Jack's face and you will see a club like a
policeman's billy. Along this club the inconspicuous flowers are borne.
Later, in the fall, the fruit forms, and inside, instead of rather
uninteresting flowers, are bright red berries. So Jack jokes again.

"There is always a great feeling of joy when the first trilliums, or
wake robins, appear. Walking in the deep, moist woods suddenly one sees
a mass of big leaves and white flowers. The same irresistably lovely
trilliums have come again. Three big leaves, then a flower stalk
shooting up from the centre of this whorl of leaves, and on top the
crowning glory--the three-petaled trillium flower. A fragrant white or
pink form is called the nodding wake robin. These in a glance tell their
wishes. The plant sometimes is nearly two feet high. So a clump of these
could easily go toward the back of the wild-flower garden in shade and
moist soil.

"Another wild flower of striking beauty is the May apple or mandrake. It
comes very early in May, often in April. This plant grows to about the
same height as the trillium. Only the big spreading leaves of the
mandrake are visible at first sight. Beneath these, and daintily hung in
the junction of the leaf stalks, is the lovely, waxy, white blossom.
Late after the fading of the blossom the fruit appear