Some Spring Days in Iowa | Page 8

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 our footfalls, while
overhead the light daily grows more subdued as the leaf-buds break and
the leaves unfold. The throb of the year's life grows stronger. All the
blossoms and buds which were formed last summer now break quickly
into beauty. And, already, before the year has fairly started, there are
signs of preparation for the following year. The dandelion is pushing up
its fairy balloons, waiting for the first breeze. The shepherd's purse
already shows many mature seeds below its little white blossoms. The
keys of the soft maple will soon be ready to fall and send out rootlets,
and the winged seeds of the white elm already lie thickly beneath the
leafing branches.
* * * * *
Each flower invites admiration and study. Dig up the root of the
Solomon's seal, a rootstock, the botanists call it. It is long, more or less
thickened and here and there is a circular scar which marks the place

from which former stems have arisen. When these leaf-bearing stems
die down they leave on this rootstock down in the ground, a record of
their having lived. The scar looks something like a wax seal and the
man who gave the plant the name of Solomon's seal had probably read
that tale in the Arabian Nights, where King Solomon's seal penned up
the giant genie who had troubled the fishermen.
Then there's the May-apple. Who does not remember his childhood
days when he pulled the little umbrellas? Even now as they come up in
little colonies, they call up memories of the fairy tales of childhood and
we almost expect to see a fairy, or a brownie, or Queen Mab herself,
coming from under them, when the summer shower, which makes their
tops so beautifully moist gray, has passed. And they also bring to mind
that charming first edition of Dr. Gray's botany, which had in it much
of the man's humor as well as his learning. Too bad that the learned
scientists who succeeded him have cut it out. "Common Honesty, very
rare in some places," he wrote, speaking of that plant. "Ailanthus, Tree
of Heaven, flowers smell of anything but heaven," was his comment on
the blossoms of our picturesque importation from China. And when he
came to the May-apple he wrote that the sweetish fruit was "eaten by
pigs and boys." This made William Hamilton Gibson remember his
own boyish gorgings and he wrote: "Think of it boys.