I came near missing the little water starwort when in bloom, because of its inconspicuous flowers, which consist of a single stamen and a single ovary without calyx or corolla, almost hidden in the axil of one of the leaves. I look for it year after year in the same brook in which I first found it, and it never fails to appear. The song of Tennyson's brook it has made its own in that one respect at least..

More and more of the marsh plants are now coming into bloom, one of which deserves and attracts more than a passing interest. This is the pitcher-plant, named by Tournefort, the leading French botanist at the end of the seventeenth century, in honor of Dr. Sarrazin of Quebec, who first sent our species, Sarracenia purpurea, L., and a botanical account of it, to Europe. In a note to that charming work, "The Old Régime in Canada," by Francis Parkman, I find this brief account of Dr. Sarrazin, who was one of the few Frenchmen of a certain intellectual eminence then living in Canada. "Sarrazin, a naturalist as well as a physician, has left his name to the botanical genus Sarracenia, of which the curious American species, S. purpurea, the 'pitcherplant,' was described by him. His position in the colony was singular and characteristic. He got little or no pay from his patients; and, though at one time the only genuine physician in Canada, he was dependent on the king for support. In 1699, we find him thanking his

Majesty for 300 francs a year, and asking at the same time for more, as he had nothing else to live on. Two years later the governor writes that, as he serves almost everybody without fees, he ought to have another 300 francs. The additional 300 francs was given him; but, finding it insufficient, he wanted to leave the colony. 'He is too useful,' writes the governor again; 'we cannot let him go.' His yearly pittance of 600 francs was at one time reënforced by his salary as member of the Superior Council. He died at Quebec in 1734." name, however, shall not fade, cannot fade, from human remembrance so long as men study the wild flowers of America, where, I believe, this genus is as yet exclusively found.

His

The pitcher-shaped leaves, usually half filled with water and drowned insects, with their rounded arching hood at the apex clothed with stiff bristles pointing downward, making the entrance easy for insects but the exit almost impossible, when once seen and examined. ever so slightly, are not to be forgotten. In one respect the flower also is peculiar. The short style of the pistil is expanded at the summit into a broad 5-angled, 5-rayed, umbrella-shaped body, about as large as a horizontal section of the whole flower, while the five delicate rays terminate under the angles in as many little hooked stigmas. This forms a cover for the numerous stamens, which are not visible unless the petals

be drawn aside. Once, when examining some of these flowers while still growing, I was surprised to find this cavity filled with flies somewhat larger than the common house-fly, all busy as could be in eating the pollen, of which scarcely a grain then remained. I counted fourteen flies in one flower. Nearly every one examined was filled in the same way. There was a shower coming up at the time, but the flies were evidently seeking food, if not shelter. In the leaf their fate would have been very different.

When I want to find it in great abundance I go to the margin of a pool in the depths of a cedar swamp in Auburn. For convenience, when referring to this pool, I call it "The Lake of the Dismal Swamp." There in the sphagnum moss, where at every step the feet sink out of sight and we wonder what may be beneath, the pitcher-plant is at home. If I ever visit the real "Lake of the Dismal Swamp" I shall expect to find there one of the allied species of this interesting genus.

The cow-parsnip and the great angelica will not be overlooked. They overtop most of their associates and challenge attention by their stature, if in no other way. The delicate little rock-rose sheds its petals so quickly that we can hardly see the use of its opening them, while its neighbor in the list, the dog lily, is persistent in retaining its petals as long as possible. The little evening primrose now opens its quiet eye, and is liable

to be confounded, at a hasty glance, with the cinquefoil, its neighbor. The lobelia with its small blue flowers would scarcely suggest any possibility of relationship with the bright, tall cardinal flower of a later date, but we shall see that they are near of kin.

June 20th was the date last year for Liparis. It is time now to visit the one locality where I have found it. In the meadow through which I pass, the quaking grass (Briza media, L.), which rejoices under fifty-four different common names in Britten and Holland's "Dictionary of English Plant-Names," is at its prime. On the margin of the ditch that borders this field are some odorous plants, which prove to be wild garlic; in the edge of the wood, where plant life runs wild, Lysimachia and Celastrus and Diervilla and a host of others are seen. By the side of this now almost obliterated wood-road is our little colony of Liparis, perfect in its own beauty, perfect in the charm of its surroundings. There are larger and more gayly-colored flowers to follow, but none which I would rather see than this. I hope to find it here every year, where I first found it, and where I can renew the pleasant surprise of that first discovery.

THE EARLY SUMMER FLOWERS.

July 2, 1857.-Calla palustris with its convolute point, like the cultivated, at the south end of Gowing's swamp. Having found this in one place, I now find it in another. Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray. So in the largest sense we find only the world we look for.

— THOREAU

Summer.

As I now read the "Summer" diary of Thoreau and enjoy it thoroughly, I cannot help regretting that it was not printed earlier, so that I might have had it as a guide when my own interest in Nature was awaking. One can certainly see some things by himself, but he can as certainly see many more if led by a sympathetic and interested guide. There are not many avenues of human thought or industry where the finger-posts set up by those who have already traveled the road are not helpful. I find that I like to know what other men And so outthink of those things which interest me. door books, as they may be called, books which present