MAY.
May brings so many wild flowers that the mere names would easily fill all the space I can have.
But the young flower-hunter must get an idea of some of the flowers sure to appear in May, and those who will notice the habits of plants will soon discover where these fair friends dwell, and will learn which selects the valley, which the hill-side, finding that as a general thing they may be looked for with the certainty of being found in their favorite haunts.
Botanical authorities have arranged all known plants in families, and each plant belongs to some floral family, the members of which possess certain qualities in common, making it suitable to class them together; for instance, all the buttercups, anemones, clematis, hepaticas, larkspur, columbine, and many others, belong to the Crowfoot family—a large family, all possessing a colorless but acrid juice, which is, in some of them, a narcotic poison, as hellebore, aconite, larkspur, and monk's-hood. Others are quite harmless, as the marsh-marigold, so well known as cowslips, or the "greens" of early spring. Others have a delicate beauty, as the anemones, hepaticas, and others.
Another family, the Poppy family, takes in all the poppies, the bloodroot, celandine, and others. These have a milky or colored juice, often used medicinally, and from one species of poppy opium is made.
The Crucifers, or Mustard family, have cross-shaped flowers, and abound in a pungent, biting juice, with which we are familiar; and thus we could go on enumerating the distinctive qualities of one hundred and thirty families.
In every month are to be found some peculiarly rare and interesting plants, and May can show a fair array. In cold bogs and swamps of New England the genial airs awaken many a blossom that seems too lovely for such dismal surroundings. But bogs and swamps and wet pastures are well worth exploring, and are justly dear to the botanical heart; for here, springing from a bed of soft black mud, may be seen the pink Arethusa, fair as a rose leaf, the rare Calypso, the singular trilliums, the graceful adder's-tongue, and several species of the remarkable Cypripediums, or lady's-slipper. The beautiful spring orchis, the only orchis blossoming early, of most delicate white and purple tints, flourishes in damp, rich woods, and the Cornus, or dogwood, lights up the shady nooks with level sheets of bloom.
Violets, more than twenty varieties, come on in April, May, and June; but I can specify but one—a charming species of pansy-like beauty, found at Farmington, Connecticut, with the two upper petals of the finest violet tint, and of velvet softness. In moist woodlands in Western Connecticut the staphylea, or bladder-nut, attracts attention by its drooping racemes of white flowers, and later in the season the rich brown seed-vessels are as handsome as the flowers in the spring. All around on the rocky road-side banks and in dry fields the airy wild columbine and pretty corydalis blossoms nod in every breeze, and the ravines on the hills are fringed with the softest frills of exquisite leaves and odd flowers of the Dutchman's-breeches and squirrel-corn, whitish and pinkish, and with the scent of hyacinths.
One other must not be forgotten, though so well known as hardly needing to be named. Who has not searched in dim New England woods, under solemn pines, for the sweet, shy, waxen clusters of this dearest of all the flowery train, hiding under old rusty leaves, but betraying itself by that indescribably delicious fragrance which perfumes the wood paths? Surely all the young hands have been filled with the pilgrim's-flower, the epigæa, the trailing arbutus, the beloved May-flower of olden and of modern time.
In the Middle States many plants are found which New England does not furnish. New Jersey is famed for woodland treasures; not only Orange Mountains, but the pine-barrens, show many a charming blossom, and the dweller at the West finds on the flower-tinted prairies a profusion which the Eastern fields can not approach. On the hills of Pennsylvania may be seen the brilliant flame-colored azalea and the North American papaw—a relative of the tropical custard-apple—and the pink blossoms of the Judas-tree, and several varieties of larkspur, and in low thickets are found the white adder's-tongue and the dwarf white trillium. At the West, the interesting anemone called Easter or Pasque flower, from its blossoming near Easter; and another beautiful Western flower is the American cowslip, called also the shooting-star, which is found in Pennsylvania as well as on Western prairies. The following is a list of some of the flowers of May, with the localities in which they are most abundant: