alders come first. They cluster and dance everywhere upon the bare
boughs above the watercourses; the blackness of the buds is softened
into rich brown and yellow; and as this graceful creature thus comes
waving into the spring, it is pleasant to remember that the Norse Eddas
fabled the first woman to have been named Embla, because she was created
from an alder-bough.

The first wild-flower of the spring is like land after sea. The two
which, throughout the Northern Atlantic States, divide this interest are
the _Epigaea repens_ (May-flower, ground-laurel, or trailing-arbutus)
and the _Hepatica triloba_ (liverleaf, liverwort, or blue anemone). Of
these two, the latter is perhaps more immediately exciting on first
discovery; because it does not, like the epigaea, exhibit its buds all
winter, but opens its blue eyes almost as soon as it emerges from the
ground. Without the rich and delicious odor of its compeer, it has
an inexpressibly fresh and earthy scent, that seems to bring all the
promise of the blessed season with it; indeed, that clod of fresh turf
with the inhalation of which Lord Bacon delighted to begin the day must
undoubtedly have been full of the roots of our little hepatica. Its
healthy sweetness belongs to the opening year, like Chaucer's poetry;
and one thinks that anything more potent and voluptuous would be less
enchanting,--until one turns to the May-flower. Then comes a richer
fascination for the senses. To pick the May-flower is like following in
the footsteps of some spendthrift army which has scattered the contents
of its treasure-chest among beds of scented moss. The fingers sink in
the soft, moist verdure, and make at each instant some superb discovery
unawares; again and again, straying carelessly, they clutch some new
treasure; and, indeed, all is linked together in bright necklaces by
secret threads beneath the surface, and where you grasp at one, you hold
many. The hands go wandering over the moss as over the keys of a piano,