Did you ever see trees that were mutilated to allow of the stringing of telephone and telegraph wires? Who owns the shade trees along a street or public highway? LEAFLET LVI. THE HEPATICA.[74] BY ALICE G. McCLOSKEY. (Compare Leaflet XL.) [74] Junior Naturalist Monthly, March, 1903. [Illustration] Something new and pleasant happened in my life this year. In February, while the wood was snow-covered and the roadsides piled high with drifts, I saw hepaticas in bloom. Oh, no! I did not find them out of doors. I had all the fun of watching them from my warm chimney-corner. Then when winds blew fiercely I often went to the window where they grew and buried my head in the sweet blossoms. What do you suppose they told me? If some winter day you feel their soft touch on your face, and smell their woodsy fragrance, you will hear the message. Perhaps you want to know how the hepaticas found their way into my window-box. Last fall as I walked through a leafy wood I gathered a few plants, roots and all, that I had known and loved in spring and summer days. Among them were hepaticas. These I laid away in the cellar until the first of February. Then I planted them in a corner of the window-box that I had left for them. Since the little woods plants have come to live with me I have learned to know them well. Perhaps the most important lesson they have taught me is this: The blossoms may be the least interesting part of a plant. Will you find out what hepaticas have to tell as the seasons pass? Even before you hear the first robin, go into the woods, find one of the hepaticas, and mark it for your own. You will know it by the old brown leaves. Then watch it day by day. The following questions will help you to learn its life story: 1. Where do hepaticas grow, in sunny or shady places? During which seasons do they get the most sunlight? 2. Watch the first sign of life in the plant. Do the new leaves or the flowers come first? 3. Look at the hepatica blossom a long time. How many different parts can you see in it? Whether you know the names of these parts now does not matter. I want you to see them. 4. Notice the three small, green, leaf-like parts that are around the flower bud. As the flower opens see whether they are a part of it, or whether they are a little way from it on the stem. 5. Observe the stem closely. Is it short or long? Hairy or smooth? 6. As the new leaves appear find out whether they are fuzzy on the inside as well as on the outside. Notice how they are rolled up and watch them unroll. 7. In how many different colors do you find hepaticas? 8. Do some smell sweeter than others? If so, does color seem to have anything to do with it? 9. Look at a hepatica plant at night or very late in the afternoon. Also watch it early in the morning and in cloudy weather. Then look at it in bright sunshine. Do you see any change in the flowers? I think you will discover something of much interest.