Nature-notes and impressions : in prose and verse / by Madison Cawein [electronic text]

March 27th, 1905. I found the hepatica with its twisted hairy stems and three-lobed leaves blooming retiredly at the protecting base of an old beech, hidden, or trying to hide, in a rooty angle of lichen and leaves and moss. A peculiarity of these hepatica blossoms is that they are a delicate pink, almost white, and not blue—the color generally attributed to the liverwort.

Think of the strength of the sprouting germ of such a tender and frail thing as a wildflower! lifting or displacing a clod, or even a small stone often with its pointed bud; piercing with its slender green the superimposed layers of dead leaves as a needle might; and not till they are pierced, unfolding the large beauty of its leaf. Thus to-day I noted many of the leaves of the adder's-tongue, or dog's-tooth violet, collared or ruffed curiously with a collar or ruff of dead leaves, which they had neatly and completely pierced.

The spicewood bush is now in bloom. Its yet leafless branches are illuminated with many fuzzy little flowers, lights of pale amber, aromatic as some oriental pastil.

The gold-green blooms of the spicebush burn Lighting the wood at every turn;

Like the starry tufts of the sassafras, Whose fragrance thrills us as we pass, From out their patens of gold they spill A faint aroma that haunts the hill.