Of these, the first we shall name is the common groundsel (_Senecio vulgaris_), and a hardier little plant than this, of its kind, it would be scarcely possible to find. We have seen it in flower in the early part of January, when every stream, pond, and ditch around was frozen almost to the bottom, its soft leaves looking as fresh and glossy as if it had been the height of summer. The groundsel is a member of a little group which includes the ragworts, and they all bear yellow blossoms, and have a strong family likeness. _Senecio vulgaris_ really flowers all the year round, and that is why we have it so conveniently among our early January blossoms. That it is so plentiful and so hardy is a wise provision of nature; for its leaves, the florets of its blossoms, and its seeds are very welcome additions to the food of our small birds, who have at least this provision for their comfort during the rigors of our frosts. The other little wildling of the two we have especially mentioned as being among the hardiest even of the hardy January flora is the common chickweed (_Stellaria media_), a pretty little plant, which, because of its marvelous power of reproduction, and its persistency in intruding within the prim domain of the gardener, is by the last named individual regarded with feelings of bitter enmity, and is mercilessly exterminated whenever it comes into the realm of graveled path and nicely-kept border. Very different are the feelings of the small birds toward the chickweed, for it furnishes them with food which is eagerly sought after and keenly appreciated. Its power of branching and spreading is really marvelous, and it seems almost to lead a charmed life, for the most persevering attempts to uproot and banish it from the ground whereon it has once fairly established itself, ordinarily fail. We have said that its flowers are pretty, but perhaps some unobservant and unreflecting people hardly credit it with the production of blossom, for the minute, oblong, white petals are so much hidden by the green five-cleft calyx which is oftentimes larger than the corolla, entirely enveloping them when in bud, that they are inconspicuous among the mass of spreading green. And now we have reached, in our pleasant task of enumerating our earliest wild flowers, the delicate and beautiful snowdrop (_Galanthus nivalis_), the botanical name indicating a milk-white blossom; and though it can scarcely claim to take a place as “The first pale blossom of the ripening year,” it may be sometimes seen in bloom before the middle of January. Have the incurious and unobservant noticed more about this beautiful flower than that it is white and drooping, and early in appearing, and, of course, pretty? We fancy not. Yet this delicate white blossom will well repay careful and searching examination.