Very early in the spring a race is run with the hepatica, arbutus, adder's tongue, blood-root, squirrel corn, and anemone for the honor of being the earliest wild flower; and although John Burroughs and Dr. Abbott have had the exceptional experience of finding the claytonia even before the hepatica - certainly the earliest spring blossom worthy the name in the Middle and New England States - of course the rank skunk-cabbage, whose name is snobbishly excluded from the list of fair competitors, has quietly opened dozens of minute florets in its incurved horn before the others have even started. Whether the petals of the spring beauty are white or pink, they are always exquisitely marked with pink lines converging near the base and ending in a yellow blotch to serve as pathfinders for the female bumblebees and the little brown bombylius, among other pollen carriers. A newly opened flower, with its stamens surrounding the pistil, must be in peril of self-fertilization one would think who did not notice that when the pollen is in condition for removal by the bees and flies, the stigmatic surfaces of the three-cleft style are tightly pressed together that not a grain may touch them. But when the anthers have shed their pollen, and the filaments have spread outward and away from the pistil, the three stigmatic arms branch out to receive the fertilizing dust carried from younger flowers by their busy friends. STARRY CAMPION (Silene stellata) Pink family Flowers - White, about 1/2 in. broad or over, loosely clustered in a showy, pyramidal panicle. Calyx bell-shaped, swollen, 5-toothed, sticky; 5 fringed and clawed petals; 10 long, exserted stamens; 3 styles. Stem: Erect, leafy, 2 to 3 1/2 ft. tall, rough-hairy. Leaves: Oval, tapering to a point, 2 to 4 in. long, seated in whorls of 4 around stem, or loose ones opposite. Preferred Habitat - Woods, shady banks. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Rhode Island westward to Mississippi, south to the Carolinas and Arkansas.