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This is a peculiarity of the English spring which I have never seen explained or even mentioned. After the epigaea and the hepatica have opened, there is a slight pause among the wild-flowers, these two forming a distinct prologue for their annual drama, as the brilliant witch-hazel in October brings up its separate epilogue.
After all Epigaea and Gaultheria are vines closely allied, and it is no wonder that there is a family resemblance. The checkerberry's spicy flavor permeates leaves, stem and fruit. That of the arbutus seems more volatile and ethereal.
The first wild-flower of the spring is like land after sea. 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.
EPIGAEA REPENS. Ground Laurel, or New England Mayflower. Northern United States, 1736. This is, perhaps, in so far as stature is concerned, hardly worthy of a place in our list, yet it is such a pretty and useful shrub, though rarely rising more than 6 inches from the ground, that we cannot well pass it over.
The arbutus does not trail in all spots beneath the oaks, even in this secluded wilderness. Sometimes one thinks he sees broad stretches green with its rounded leaves only to find last year's checkerberries grinning coral red at him, instead of the soft pink tints and spicy odor of the Epigaea blooms.
Even so good an observer as Wilson Flagg is betrayed into saying that the epigaea and hepatica "seldom make their appearance until after the middle of April" in Massachusetts, and that "it is not unusual for the whole month of April to pass away without producing more than two or three species of wild-flowers."
So great is the charm of the pursuit, that the epigaea is really the one wild-flower for which our country-people have a hearty passion. Every village child knows its best haunts, and watches for it eagerly in the spring; boys wreathe their hats with it, girls twine it in their hair, and the cottage-windows are filled with its beauty.
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