Flowers and Ferns in their Haunts

Wildflowers keep secret addresses, and Mabel Osgood Wright knew them all. In this graceful ramble through meadow, wood, and swamp, the pioneering American nature writer visits flowers and ferns where they actually live: hepaticas under April leaves, cardinal flowers by August brooks, ferns unrolling in shaded hollows. Botany arrives wrapped in story and season, with a companion's warmth rather than a textbook's chill. For gardeners, walkers, and anyone who stoops to look closer, it is a year of small discoveries. Follow her off the path; the best blooms hide there.