| “ | Ere rural fields their green resume, |
| Sweet flower, I love in forest bare | |
| To meet thee, when thy faint perfume | |
| Alone is in the virgin air.” |
Another is much larger, and grows singly.
The white are quite small, but singularly enough, one of these is fragrant, though the perfume is not so exquisite as that of the European violet; the sweet, white kind are sometimes gathered as late as August. The tri-color is a large and solitary plant, and I have known it fragrant, though it does not appear to be always so. The violets of the Western Prairies are said to be slightly fragrant, although the other flowers of that part of the country have generally no perfume.
Friday, 19th.—Fine, bright weather. The apple-trees are in blossom—they opened last night by moonlight; not one was in flower yesterday, now the whole orchard is in bloom. The orioles have been running over the fresh flowers all the morning, talking to each other, meanwhile, in their clear, full tones. Delightful walk in the evening. We went down to the Great Meadow, beyond Mill Island; the wood which borders it was gay with the white blossoms of the wild cherries and June-berry, the wild plum and the hobble-bush, all very common with us. The evening air was delicately perfumed throughout the broad field, but we could not discover precisely the cause of the fragrance, as it did not seem stronger at one point than at another; it was rather a medley of all spring odors. The June-berry is slightly fragrant, something like the thorn.
We found numbers of the white moose-flowers, the great petals of the larger sorts giving them an importance which no other
