fragrant last year will also be fragrant this year; that the furry stems
are slightly pungent,--enough to give spice to a sandwich; these
preliminary observations fit us for more intricate problems later on.

* * * * *

Spenser, the divinely tongued, pictures April as a lusty youth, riding
upon the bull with the golden horns (_Taurus_), wading through a flood,
and adorned with garlands of the fairest flowers and buds. A better
figure would have been Europa riding Zeus. And Chaucer also makes April a
masculine month:

_"When that Aprille with his schoweres swoote
The drought of Marche had perced to the roote."_

But surely April, with her smiles anl[TN-1] tears, ought to be regarded
as a feminine month. Ovid has shown that she was not named from
_aperire_, to open, as some have supposed, but from Aphrodite, the Greek
name for Venus, goddess of beauty and mother of love. She is chaste, even
cold, but grows sweeter and more affectionate every day and her tears all
end in smiles. Her flowers are pure and mostly white, fitting for a
maiden. Look at the list (if the weather is warm):

White or whitish:--Rue-anemone, hepatica, spring beauty, blood-root,
toothwort, Dutchman's breeches, dog's tooth violet, wild ginger,
chickweed, Isopyrum, plantain-leaved everlasting, shepherd's purse,
shad-bush, wild strawberry, whitlow-grass, wind-flower, hackberry
(greenish white), false Solomon's seal, catnip, spring cress, wild black
currant, wild plum.