Graceful in gesture, with delicate, fernlike leaves and anise-scented roots that children, like rabbits, delight to nibble, the sweet cicely attracts attention by its fragrance, however insignificant its flowers. In wooded places, such as it prefers to dwell in, white blossoms, which are far more noticeable in a dim light than colored ones, and finely cut leaves that can best withstand the drip from trees, abound. These white umbels bear a large proportion of male, or pollen-bearing, florets to the number of hermaphrodite, or two-sexed, florets; but as the latter mature their pollen before their stigmas become susceptible to it, self-fertilization is well guarded against, and cross-fertilization is effected with the help of as many flies as small bees, which come in numbers to lick up the nectar so freely exposed in consideration of their short tongues. We have to thank these little creatures for the long, slender seeds, armed with short bristles along the ribs, that they may snatch rides on our garments, together with the beggar-ticks, burdock, cleavers, and other vagabond colonists in search of unoccupied ground. Be sure you know the difference between sweet cicely and the poisonous water hemlock before tasting the former's spicy root. Was there no more important genus - containing, if possible, red, white, and blue flowers - to have named in honor of the Father of his Country? Another member of the Carrot family, the SANICLE or BLACK SNAKEROOT (Sanicula Marylandica), found blooming from May to July in such rich, moist woodlands and shrubbery as the sweet cicely prefers, lifts spreading, two to four rayed umbels of insignificant-looking but interesting little greenish-white florets. At first the tips of the five petals are tucked into the center of each little flower; underneath them the stamens are now imprisoned while any danger of self-fertilizing the stigma remains. The few hermaphrodite florets have their styles protruding from the start, and incoming insects leave pollen brought from staminate florets on the early-maturing stigmas. After cross-fertilization has been effected, it is the pistil's turn to keep out of the way, and give the imprisoned stamens a chance: the styles curve until the stigmas are pressed against the sides of the ovary, that not a grain of pollen may touch them; the petals spread and release the stamens; but so great is the flower's zeal not to be fertilized with its own pollen that it sometimes holds the anthers tightly between the petals until all the vitalizing dust has been shed! Around the hermaphrodite florets are a large number of male florets in each hemispheric cluster. Hooked bristles and slender, curved styles protrude from the little burr-like seeds, that any creature passing by may give them a lift to fresh colonizing land! The firm bluish-green leaves, palmately divided into from five to seven oblong, irregularly saw-edged segments, the upper leaves seated on the