It is when the hepatica is our guest that we have a better opportunity for studying its form and features. Take up a hepatica root in the fall and pot it and place it in a cool cellar until March 1. Then give it light, warmth, and moisture on your table and see how gladly it will blossom and tell its secrets. Or perhaps if we are not sufficiently forehanded to get the root in the fall we can get it during a thaw in March when we go foraging for spring feelings in winter woods. [Illustration: _Fig. 275. Hepatica, harbinger of spring._] When finally a bud has uncuddled and lifted itself into a flower, it will tell us the story of leaves in different disguises, and we may be able to notice whether the pollen ripens and is all distributed when the flower begins to fade and fall. We may note also the number of seeds and examine one of them with a lens. It is what the botanists call an akene, which simply means just one seed with a tight envelope about it. We have a careless habit of forgetting all about plants after their blossoms fade unless their fruits or seed are good to eat or good to look at. This is as inconsistent as it would be to lose all interest in the farm before the fields were planted. After the flower is gone the plant must mature its seeds and somehow must sow them. We will study the hepatica through the summer and autumn, for we must know what is happening to it every month. QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE HEPATICA TO BE ANSWERED DURING MARCH AND APRIL. 1. In what situations are the hepaticas found? 2. How does the hepatica prepare for the winter and store up energy for blossoming early in the spring? 3. How early do you find blossom buds down in the center of the plant? Did you ever look for these buds in the fall? 4. Do the flowers come out of the crown bud? 5. Are the leaves that come up late in the spring as fuzzy when they first appear as those that come up early? 6. Make out as complete a life-history of the hepatica as you can,--how it sows itself, where it grows, how long it lives, with what plant it keeps company. LEAFLET XLI. JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.[55] BY ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK. [55] Home Nature-Study Course, Vol. IV, No. 31, April, 1903. "Jack-in-the-Pulpit preaches to-day Under the green trees, just over the way. Squirrel and song sparrow high on their perch Hear the sweet lily bells ringing to church. Come, hear what his reverence rises to say, In his low, painted pulpit this calm Sabbath day, Fair is the canopy over him seen, Penciled by nature's hand, black, brown, and green." _J. G. Whittier._ [Illustration: _Fig. 276. Jack-in-the-Pulpit._] [Illustration]