Is the princess worth your knowing? Then haste, for the spring is brief, And find the Hepatica growing, Hid under a last year's leaf!

She followed the partially broken trails of the wood-cutters far into the depths of the forests, and found there on sunny days, in sheltered spots, where the feet of the men and horses and the runners of the heavy sledges had worn away the snow, green mosses and glossy ferns and shining clumps of the hepatica.

There were three different species of ground-pine in these woods, and hepatica and pyrola and wintergreen, and thickets of laurel.

All this Mercy was revolving in her thoughts, as she deftly and with almost a magic touch laid the soft mosses in the earthen dish, and planted them thick with ferns and hepatica and partridge-berry vines and wintergreen.

Then many eyes watch for the opening of the May-flower, day by day, and a few for the Hepatica.

I know one such place for Hepatica a mile northeast,another for May-flower two miles southwest; and each year the whimsical creature is in bloom on that little spot, when not another flower can be found open through the whole country round.

There are certain localities, near by, where the Hepatica is all but white, and others where the May-flower is sumptuous in pink; yet it is not traceable to wet or dry, sun or shadow, and no agricultural chemistry can disclose the secret.

Is it by some Darwinian law of selection that the white Hepatica has utterly overpowered the blue, in our Cascade Woods, for instance, while yet in the very midst of this pale plantation a single clump will sometimes bloom with all heaven on its petals?

The Hepatica (called also Liverwort, Squirrel-Cup, or Blue Anemone) has been found in Worcester as early as March seventeenth, and in Danvers on March twelfth,dates which appear almost the extreme of credibility.

" "I know what I'd like to have for the wild bordereither wild ginger or hepatica," announced Helen after some thought.

"They have leaves that aren't unlike in shape" "The ginger is heart-shaped," interposed Ethel Blue, "and the hepatica is supposed to be liver-shaped.

"Their leaves seem much too juicy to be evergreen, but the hepatica does stay green all winter.

" "What are the blossoms?" "The ginger has such a wee flower hiding under the leaves that it doesn't count, but the hepatica has a beautiful little blue or purple flower at the top of a hairy scape.

[Illustration: Hepatica] "And a scape was a 'grace' or a 'goat' according to its activities," concluded Tom.

"The hepatica would make a border that you wouldn't have to renew all the time," contributed Dorothy, who had been thinking so deeply that she had not heard a word of this interchange, and looked up, wondering why every one was laughing.

It has the same sort of stem that the hepatica has.

"What's yours, Ethel Blue?" "I know mine is hepatica.

[Illustration: Heart-shaped Kidney-shaped] "The hepatica is kidney-shaped," remarked James.

When they go about half way to the midrib, as in the hepatica, it is 'lobed' and when they almost reach the midrib as they do in the poppy it is 'parted.'

Hepatica Hawks.

Anne Merriman Peck (A); 28Apr60; R256221. PEDERSON, ARTHUR S. Hepatica Hawks.

Anne Merriman Peck (A); 28Apr60; R256221. PEDERSON, ARTHUR S. Hepatica Hawks.

coyoltototl, literally, "the rattle-bird," so called from its peculiar notes (coyolli = a rattle), is one of the Tanegridae, probably the Piranga hepatica.

ANEMONE Hepatica.

131 Anemone Hepatica