t the wind-flowers into his Idylls, and Pliny said that only the wind
could open them. The Spring beauty has as rich a legend, for it was the
Indian Miskodeed, left behind when Peboan, the winter, the Mighty One,
was melted by the breath of spring. The toothwort (_dentaria laciniata_)
is sometimes known as the pepper-root, and every school boy and girl
living near the woods is familiar with the taste of its tubers and the
appearance of its cross-shaped flowers. The plumy dicentra, or Dutchman's
breeches, seems so feminine as to be grossly misnamed until we remember
that it was first discovered in the Rip Van Winkle country. The wild
ginger with its two large leaves and its queer little blossoms close to
the ground is another delight to the saunterer along the rocky slopes,
where the feathery shad-bush--the aronia of Whittier--with its wealth of
snowy blossoms and the wild plum not far away, with its masses of pure
white, are inspirations to clean and sweet lives, calling to mind the
lines of Wordsworth:

_One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good
Than all the sages can._

In rocky fields and hillsides and dry open woods, the dwarf everlasting
(_Antennaria plantaginifolia_) with its silvery-white little florets set
in delicate cups, is one of the first species of the great composite
family to bloom. We take it from between the rocks and think of those
lines of Tennyson, which John Fiske declared to be among the deepest
thoughts ever uttered by poet:

_Flower in the crannied wall
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all in my hand
Little flower,--but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is._

Even more innocent, fresh and fair, is the bloodroot, with its snowy
petals, golden center and ensanguined root-stock which crimsons the
fingers that touch it. This is the herb, so the legend says, which the
Israelites in Egypt dipped in sacrificial blood to mark their doorposts.
As long ago as last November we dug up one of the papery sheaths and
found the flower, then about a half inch long, snugly wrapped in its
single leaf; and now the pale green leaf has pushed up and unfolded,
showing the fragile flower in all its beauty.

* * * * *

Strange contrasts we see in some of these April flowers. Some of them
open their star-like e