beggar's-ticks,--like daisies; and as I stopped to see what they were,
I noticed the presence of ripe seeds. The plant had been in flower a
long time. And then I laughed at my own dullness. It fairly deserved a
medal. As if, even in Massachusetts, autumnal flowers--the groundsel,
at least--did not sometimes persist in blossoming far into the winter! A
day or two after this, I saw a mullein stalk still presenting arms, as
it were (the mullein, always looks the soldier to me), with one bright
flower. If I had found _that_ in St. Augustine, I flatter myself I
should have been less easily fooled.

There were no such last-year relics in the flat-woods, so far as I
remember, but spring blossoms were beginning to make their appearance
there by the middle of February, particularly along the
railroad,--violets in abundance (_Viola cucullata_), dwarf
orange-colored dandelions (_Krigia_), the Judas-tree, or redbud, St.
Peter's-wort, blackberry, the yellow star-flower (_Hypoxis juncea_), and
butterworts. I recall, too, in a swampy spot, a fine fresh tuft of the
golden club, with its gorgeous yellow spadix,--a plant that I had never
seen in bloom before, although I had once admired a Cape Cod "hollow"
full of the rank tropical leaves. St. Peter's-wort, a low shrub, thrives
everywhere in the pine barrens, and, without being especially
attractive, its rather sparse yellow flowers--not unlike the St.
John's-wort--do something to enliven the general waste. The butterworts
are beauties, and true children of the spring. I picked my first ones,
which by chance were of the smaller purple species (_Pinguicula
pumila_), on my way down from the woods, on a moist bank. At that moment
a white man came up the road. "What do you call this flower?" said I.
"Valentine's flower," he answered at once. "Ah," said I, "because it is
in bloom on St. Valentine's Day, I suppose?" "No, sir," he said. "Do you
speak Spanish?" I had to shake my head. "Because I could explain it