Low to the passing gale.”
ATURE has scattered with no niggardly hand these remarkable flowers over hill and dale, wide shrubby plain and shady forest glen. In deep ravines, or rocky islets, the bright snow-white blossoms of the Trilliums greet the eye and court the hand to pluck them. The old people in this part of the Province call them by the familiar name of Lily. Thus we have Asphodel Lilies, Douro Lilies, &c. In Nova Scotia they are called Moose-flowers, probably from being abundant in the haunts of Moose-deer. In some of the New England States the Trilliums, white and red, are known as the Death-flower, but of the origin of so ominous a name we have no record. We might imagine it to have originated in the use of the flower to deck the coffin or graves of the dead in the olden times. The pure white blossoms of T. nivale, T. cernum (nodding Trillium) and T. grandiflorum, might serve not inappropriately for emblems of innocence and purity, when laid upon the breast of the early dead. The darker and more sanguine hue of the red species, T. sessile, and T. recurvatum, might have been selected for such as fell by violence, but these are but conjecture. A prettier name has been given to the Nodding Trillium: that of “Smiling Wake-robin,” which seems to be associated with the coming of the cheerful chorister of early spring, “The household bird with the red stomacher,” as Bishop Carey calls the robin red-breast. The botanical name of the Trillium is derived from trilex, triple, all the parts of the plant being in threes. Thus we see the round fleshy scape furnished with three large sad green leaves, closely set round the stem, two or three inches below the flower; which is composed of a calyx of three sepals, a corolla of three large snow-white, or, else, chocolate red petals: the styles or stigmas three; ovary three celled; stamens six, which is a duplicate of three. The white fleshy tuberous root is much used by the American School of Medicine in various diseases, also by the Indian herb doctors.
Trillium grandiflorum is the largest and most showy of the white species. Trillium nivale or “lesser snowy Trillium,” is the smallest; the last blooms early in May. May and June are the months in which these flowers appear. The white flowered Trilliums are subject to many varieties and accidental alterations. The green of the sepals is often transferred to the white petals in T. nivale; some are found handsomely striped with red and green, and in others the very short foot-stalk of the almost sessile leaves are lengthened into long petioles. The large White Trillium is changed previous to its fading to a dull reddish lilac.
The Red Trilliums are rich but sombre in colour, the petals are longish-ovate, regular, not waved, and the pollen is of a greyish dusty hue while that of the White species is bright orange-yellow. The leaves are of a dark lurid green, the colouring matter of the petals seems to pervade the leaves; and here, let me observe, that the same remark may be made of many other plants. In purple flowers we often perceive the violet hue to be perceptible in the stalk and under part of the leaves, and sometimes in the veins and roots. Red flowers again show the same tendency in stalk and veins.
The Blood-root in its early stage of growth shews the Orange juice in the stem and leaves, so does the Canadian Balsam and many others; that, a little observation will point out. The colouring matter of flowers has always been, more or less, a mystery to us: that light is one of the great agents can hardly for a moment be doubted, but something also may depend upon the peculiar quality of the juices that fill the tissues of the flower, and on the cellular tissue itself. Flowers deprived of light, we know, are pallid and often colourless, but how do we account for the deep crimson of the beet-root, the rose-red of the radish, the orange of the rhubarb, carrot, and turnip, which roots, being buried in the earth, are not subject to the solar rays? The natural supposition would be that all roots hidden from the light would be white, but this is by no means the case. The question is one of much interest, and deserves the attention of all naturalists, and especially of the botanical student.
Nat. Ord. Ranunculeæ.
ROCK COLUMBINE.
Aquilegia Canadensis.
“The graceful Columbine all blushing red,