"Do you know any other pretty flowers, nurse?"
"Yes, my lady, there are a great many that bloom in April and May. white violets, and blue and yellow of many kinds. And then there is the spring beauty, [Footnote: Claytonia] a delicate little flower, with pink striped bells, and the everlasting flower, [Footnote: Graphalium] and saxifrage, and the white and dark red lily, that the Yankees call 'white and red death.' [Footnote: Trillium or Wake Robin] These have three green leaves about the middle of the stalk, and the flower is composed of three pure white or deep red leaves—petals my father used to call them: for my father, Lady Mary, was a botanist, and knew the names of all the flowers, and I learned them from him. The most curious is the moccasin flower. The early one is bright golden yellow, and has a bag or sack which is curiously spotted with ruby red, and its petals are twisted like horns. There is a hard, thick piece that lies down just above the sack or moccasin part; and if you lift this up, you see a pair of round, dark spots like eyes, and the Indians say it is like the face of a hound, with the nose and black eyes plain to be seen. Two of the shorter, curled, brown petals look like flapped ears, one on each side of the face. There is a more beautiful sort, purple and white, which blooms in August. The plant is taller, and bears large, lovely flowers."
"And has it a funny face and ears too, nurse?"
"Yes, my dear, but the face is more like an ape's: it is even more distinct than in the yellow moccasin. When my brother and I were children, we used to fold back the petals, and call them baby flowers: the sack, we thought, looked like a baby's white frock."
Lady Mary was much amused at this notion.
"There are a great number of very beautiful and also very curious flowers growing in the forest," said Mrs. Frazer. "Some of them are used in medicine, and some by the Indians for dyes, with which they stain the baskets and porcupine quills. One of our earliest flowers is called the blood-root. [Footnote: Sanguivaria.] It comes up a delicate, white-folded bud, within a vine-shaped leaf, which is veined on the under side with orange yellow. If the stem or the root of this plant be broken, a scarlet juice drops out very fast. It is with this the squaws dye red and orange colours."
"I am glad to hear this, nurse. Now I can tell my dear mamma what the baskets and quills are dyed with."
"The flower is very pretty, like a white crocus, only not so large. You saw some crocuses in the conservatory the other day, I think, my dear lady."
"Oh yes; yellow ones, and purple too, in a funny china thing, with holes in its back, and the flowers came up through the holes. The gardener said it was a porcupine.
"Please, nurse, tell me of what colours real porcupine quills are?"