The SMOOTH SOLOMON'S SEAL (P. commutatum; P.giganteum of Gray), with much the same range as its smaller relative, grows in moist woods and along shaded streams. It is a variable, capricious plant, with a stout or slender stem, perhaps only one foot high, or again towering above the tallest man's head; the oval leaves also vary greatly in breadth and length; and a solitary flower may droop from an axil, or perhaps eight dingy greenish cylinders may hang in a cluster. But the plant is always smooth throughout. Even the incurved filaments which obstruct the entrance to this flower are smooth where those of the preceding species are rough-hairy. The style is so short that it may never come in contact with the anthers, although the winged visitors must often leave pollen of the same flower on the stigma. EARLY or DWARF WAKE-ROBIN (Trillium nivale) Lily-of-the-Valley family Flowers - Solitary, pure white, about 1 in. long, on an erect or curved peduncle, from a whorl of 3 leaves at summit of stem. Three spreading, green, narrowly oblong sepals; 3 oval or oblong petals; 6 stamens, the anthers about as long as filaments; 3 slender styles stigmatic along inner side. Stem: 2 to 6 in. high, from a short, tuber-like rootstock. Leaves: 3 in a whorl below the flower, 1 to 2 in. long, broadly oval, rounded at end, on short petioles. Fruit: A 3-lobed reddish berry, about 1/2 in. in diameter, the sepals adhering. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods and thickets. Flowering Season - March-May. Distribution - Pennsylvania, westward to Minnesota and Iowa, south to Kentucky. Only this delicate little flower, as white as the snow it sometimes must push through to reach the sunshine melting the last drifts in the leafless woods, can be said to wake the robins into song; a full chorus of feathered love-makers greets the appearance of the more widely distributed, and therefore better known, species. By the rule of three all the trilliums, as their name implies, regulate their affairs. Three sepals, three petals, twice three stamens, three styles, a three-celled ovary, the flower growing out from a whorl of three leaves, make the naming of wake-robins a simple matter to the novice. Rarely do the parts divide into fours, or the petals and sepals revert to primitive green leaves. With the exception of the painted trillium which sometimes grows in bogs, all the clan live in rich, moist woods. It is said the roots are poisonous. In them the next year's leaves lie curled through the winter, as in the iris and Solomon's seal, among others.