Chapter IV: Part 4

The ubiquitous White or Dutch Clover (_Trifolium repens_), whose creeping branches send up solitary round heads of white or pinkish flowers on erect, leafless stems, from May to December, in fields, open waste land, and cultivated places throughout our area, Europe, and Asia, devotes itself to wooing bees, since these are the only insects that effect cross-fertilization regularly, other visitors aiding it only occasionally. Its foliage is the favorite food of very many species of caterpillars and of all grazing cattle the world around. This is still another plant frequently miscalled shamrock. Good luck or bad attends the finding of the leaves, when compounded of an even or an odd number of leaflets more than the normal count, according to the saying of many simple-minded folk.

Blue, Tufted, or Cow Vetch or Tare; Cat Peas; Tinegrass

_Vicia Cracca_

_Flowers_--Blue, later purple; 1/2 in. long, growing downward in 1-sided spike, 15 to 40 flowered; calyx oblique, small, with unequal teeth; corolla butterfly-shaped, consisting of standard, wings, and keel, all oblong; the first clawed, the second oblique, and adhering to the shorter keel; 10 stamens, 1 detached from other 9. _Stem:_ Slender, weak, climbing or trailing, downy, 2 to 4 ft. long. _Leaves:_ Tendril bearing, divided into 18 to 24 thin, narrow, oblong leaflets. _Fruit:_ A smooth pod 1 in. long or less, 5 to 8 seeded.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry soil, fields, waste land.

_Flowering Season_--June-August.

_Distribution_--United States from New Jersey, Kentucky, and Iowa northward and northwestward. Europe and Asia.

Dry fields blued with the bright blossoms of the Tufted Vetch, and roadsides and thickets where the angular vine sends forth vivid patches of color, resound with the music of happy bees. Although the parts of the flower fit closely together, they are elastic, and opening with the energetic visitor’s weight and movement give ready access to the nectary. On his departure they resume their original position, to protect both nectar and pollen from rain and pilferers whose bodies are not perfectly adapted to further the flower’s cross-fertilization. The common bumblebee (_Bombus terrestris_) plays a mean trick, all too frequently, when he bites a hole at the base of the blossom, not only gaining easy access to the sweets for himself, but opening the way for others less intelligent than he, but quite ready to profit by his mischief, and so defeat nature’s plan. Doctor Ogle observed that the same bee always acts in the same manner, one sucking the nectar legitimately, another always biting a hole to obtain it surreptitiously, the natural inference, of course, being that some bees, like small boys, are naturally depraved.

Ground-nut

_Apios tuberosa (A. Apios)_

_Flowers_--Fragrant, chocolate brown and reddish purple, numerous, about 1/2 in. long, clustered in racemes from the leaf axils. Calyx 2-lipped, corolla papilionaceous, the broad standard petal turned backward, the keel sickle-shaped; stamens within it 9 and 1. _Stem:_ From tuberous, edible rootstock; climbing, slender, several feet long, the juice milky. _Leaves:_ Compounded of 5 to 7 ovate leaflets. _Fruit:_ A leathery, slightly curved pod, 2 to 4 in. long.

_Preferred Habitat_--Twining about undergrowth and thickets in moist or wet ground.

_Flowering Season_--July-September.

_Distribution_--New Brunswick to Ontario, south to the Gulf states and Kansas.

No one knows better than the omnivorous “barefoot boy” that

“Where the ground-nut trails its vine”

there is hidden something really good to eat under the soft, moist soil where legions of royal fern, usually standing guard above it, must be crushed before he digs up the coveted tubers. He would be the last to confuse it with the Wild Kidney Bean or Bean Vine (_Phaseolus polystachyus_). The latter has loose racemes of smaller purple flowers and leaflets in threes; nevertheless it is often confounded with the ground-nut vine by older naturalists whose knowledge was “learned of schools.”

Wild or Hog Peanut

_Amphicarpa monoica (Falcata comosa)_

_Flowers_--Numerous small, showy ones, borne in drooping clusters from axils of upper leaves; lilac, pale purplish, or rarely white, butterfly-shaped, consisting of standard petal partly enfolding wings and keel. Calyx tubular, 4 or 5 toothed; 10 stamens (9 and 1); 1 pistil. (Also solitary fertile flowers, lacking petals, on thread-like, creeping branches from lower axils or underground.) _Stem:_ Twining wiry brownish-hairy, 1 to 8 ft. long. _Leaves:_ Compounded of 3 thin leaflets, egg-shaped at base, acutely pointed at tip. _Fruit:_ Hairy pod 1 in. long. Also 1-seeded, pale, rounded, underground peanut.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist thickets, shady roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--August-September.

_Distribution_--New Brunswick westward to Nebraska, south to Gulf of Mexico.

_Amphicarpa_ (“seed at both ends”), the Greek name by which this graceful vine is sometimes known, emphasizes its most interesting feature, that, nevertheless, seems to many a foolish duplication of energy on Nature’s part. Why should the same plant bear two kinds of blossoms and seeds? Among the foliage of low shrubbery and plants in shady lanes and woodside thickets, we see the delicate, drooping clusters of lilac blossoms hanging where bees can readily discover them and, in pilfering their sweets, transfer their pollen from flower to flower. But in case of failure to intercross these blossoms that are dependent upon insect help to set fertile seed, what then? Must the plant run the risk of extinction? Self-fertilization may be an evil, but failure to produce seed at all is surely the greatest one. To guard against such a calamity, insignificant looking flowers that have no petals to open for the enticing of insects, but which fertilize themselves with their own pollen, produce abundant seed close to the ground or under it. Then what need of the showy blossoms hanging in the thicket above? Close inbreeding in the vegetable world, as in the animal, ultimately produces degenerate offspring; and although the showy lilac blossoms of the wild peanut yield comparatively few cross-fertilized seeds, these are quite sufficient to enable the vine to maintain those desired features which are the inheritance from ancestors that struggled in their day and generation after perfection. No plant dares depend upon its cleistogamous or blind flowers alone for offspring; and in the sixty or more genera containing these curious growths, that usually look like buds arrested in development, every plant that bears them bears also showy flowers dependent upon cross-pollination by insect aid.

The boy who:

“Drives home the cows from the pasture
Up through the long shady lane”

knows how reluctantly they leave the feast afforded by the wild peanut. Hogs, rooting about in the moist soil where it grows, unearth the hairy pods that should produce next year’s vines; hence the poor excuse for branding a charming plant with a repellent folk-name.

This plant should not be confused with pig-nut (_carya porcina_), which is a species of hickory.

WOOD-SORREL FAMILY _(Oxalidaceae)_

White or True Wood-sorrel; Alleluia

_Oxalis acetosella_

_Flowers_--White or delicate pink, veined with deep pink, about 1/2 in. long. Five sepals; 5 spreading petals rounded at tips; 10 stamens, 5 longer, 5 shorter, all anther-bearing; 1 pistil with 5 stigmatic styles. _Scape:_ Slender, leafless, 1-flowered, 2 to 5 in. high. _Leaf:_ Clover-like, of 3 leaflets, on long petioles from scaly, creeping rootstock.

_Preferred Habitat_--Cold, damp woods.

_Flowering Season_--May-July.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia and Manitoba, southward to North Carolina. Also a native of Europe.

Clumps of these delicate little pinkish blossoms and abundant leaves, cuddled close to the cold earth of northern forests, usually conceal near the dry leaves or moss from which they spring blind flowers that never open--cleistogamous the botanists call them--flowers that lack petals, as if they were immature buds; that lack odor, nectar, and entrance; yet they are perfectly mature, self-fertilized, and abundantly fruitful. Fifty-five genera of plants contain one or more species on which these peculiar products are found, the pea family having more than any other, although violets offer perhaps the most familiar instance to most of us. Many of these species bury their offspring below ground; but the wood-sorrel bears its blind flowers nodding from the top of a curved scape at the base of the plant, where we can readily find them. By having no petals, and other features assumed by an ordinary flower to attract insects, and chiefly in saving pollen, they produce seed with literally the closest economy. It is estimated that the average blind flower of the wood-sorrel does its work with four hundred pollen grains, while the prodigal peony scatters with the help of wind and insect visitors more than three and a half millions!

As self-fertilization is impossible, the showy blossoms of the wood-sorrel are a necessity not a luxury; for the insects must not be allowed to overlook them.

Every child knows how the wood-sorrel “goes to sleep” by drooping its three leaflets until they touch back to back at evening, regaining the horizontal at sunrise--a performance most scientists now agree protects the peculiarly sensitive leaf from cold by radiation. During the day as well, seedling, scape, and leaves go through some interesting movements, closely followed by Darwin in his “Power of Movement in Plants,” which should be read by all interested.

_Oxalis_, the Greek for sour, applies to all sorrels because of their acid juice; but _acetosella_ = vinegar salt, the specific name of this plant, indicates that from it druggists obtain salt of lemons. Twenty pounds of leaves yield between two and three ounces of oxalic acid by crystallization. Names locally given the plant in the Old World are wood sour or sower, cuckoo’s meat, sour trefoil, and shamrock--for this is St. Patrick’s own flower, the true shamrock of the ancient Irish, some claim. Alleluia, another folk-name, refers to the joyousness of the Easter season, when the plant comes into bloom in England.

Violet Wood-sorrel

_Oxalis violacea_

_Flowers_--Pinkish purple, lavender, or pale magenta; less than 1 in. long; borne on slender stems in umbels or forking clusters, each containing from 3 to 12 flowers. Calyx of 5 obtuse sepals; 5 petals; 10 (5 longer, 5 shorter) stamens; 5 styles persistent above 5-celled ovary. _Stem:_ From brownish, scaly bulb 4 to 9 in. high. _Leaves:_ About 1 in. wide, compounded of 3 rounded, clover-like leaflets with prominent midrib borne at end of slender petioles, springing from root.

_Preferred Habitat_--Rocky and sandy woods.

_Flowering Season_--May-June.

_Distribution_--Northern United States to Rocky Mountains, south to Florida and New Mexico; more abundant southward.

Beauty of leaf and blossom is not the only attraction possessed by this charming little plant. As a family the wood-sorrels have great interest for botanists since Darwin devoted such exhaustive study to their power of movement, and many other scientists have described the several forms assumed by perfect flowers of the same species to secure cross-fertilization. Some members of the clan also bear blind flowers, which have been described in the account of the white wood-sorrel. Even the rudimentary leaves of the seedlings “go to sleep” at evening, and during the day are in constant movement up and down. The stems, too, are restless; and as for the mature leaves, every child knows how they droop their three leaflets back to back against the stem at evening, elevating them to the perfect horizontal again by day. Extreme sensitiveness to light has been thought to be the true explanation of so much activity, and yet this is not a satisfactory theory in many cases. It is certain that drooping leaves suffer far less from frost than those whose upper surfaces are flatly exposed to the zenith. This view that the sleep of leaves saves them from being chilled at night by radiation is Darwin’s own, supported by innumerable experiments; and probably it would have been advanced by Linnaeus, too, since so many of his observations in “Somnus Plantarum” verify the theory, had the principle of radiation been discovered in his day.

GERANIUM FAMILY _(Geraniaceae)_

Wild or Spotted Geranium or Crane’s-Bill; Alum-root

_Geranium maculatum_

_Flowers_--Pale magenta, purplish pink, or lavender, regular, 1 to 1-1/2 in. broad, solitary or a pair, borne on elongated peduncles, generally with pair of leaves at their base. Calyx of 5 lapping, pointed sepals; 5 petals, woolly at base; 10 stamens; 1 pistil with 5 styles. _Fruit:_ A slender capsule pointed like a crane’s bill. In maturity it ejects seeds elastically far from the parent plant. _Stem:_ 1 to 2 ft. high, hairy, slender, simple or branching above. _Leaves:_ Older ones sometimes spotted with white; basal ones 3 to 6 in. wide, 3 to 5 parted, variously cleft and toothed; 2 stem leaves opposite.

_Preferred Habitat_--Open woods, thickets, and shady roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--April-July.

_Distribution_--Newfoundland to Georgia, and westward a thousand miles.

Sprengel, who was the first to exalt flowers above the level of mere botanical specimens, had his attention led to the intimate relationship existing between plants and insects by studying out the meaning of the hairy corolla of the common Wild Geranium of Germany _(G. sylvaticum)_, being convinced, as he wrote in 1787, that “the wise Author of Nature has not made even a single hair without a definite design.” A hundred years before, Nehemias Grew had said that it was necessary for pollen to reach the stigma of a flower in order that it might set fertile seed; and Linnaeus had to come to his aid with conclusive evidence to convince a doubting world that this was true. Sprengel made the next step forward, but his writings lay neglected over seventy years because he advanced the then incredible and only partially true statement that a flower is fertilized by insects which carry its pollen from its anthers to its stigma. In spite of his discoveries that the hairs inside the geranium’s corolla protect its nectar from rain for the insect’s benefit, just as eyebrows keep perspiration from falling into the eye; that most flowers which secrete nectar have what he termed “honey guides”--spots of bright color, heavy veining, or some such pathfinder on the petals--in spite of the most patient and scientific research that shed great light on natural selection a half-century before Darwin advanced the theory, he left it for the author of “The Origin of Species” to show that cross-fertilization--the transfer of pollen from one blossom to another, not from anthers to stigma of the same flower--is the great end to which so much marvellous mechanism is chiefly adapted. Cross-fertilized blossoms defeat self-fertilized flowers in the struggle for existence.

No wonder Sprengel’s theory was disproved by his scornful contemporaries in the very case of his Wild Geranium, which sheds its pollen before it has developed a stigma to receive any; therefore no insect that had not brought pollen from an earlier bloom could possibly fertilize this flower. How amazing that he did not see this! Our common wild crane’s-bill, which also has lost the power to fertilize itself, not only ripens first the outer, then the inner, row of anthers, but actually drops them off after their pollen has been removed, to overcome the barest chance of self-fertilization as the stigmas become receptive. This is the geranium’s and many other flowers’ method to compel cross-fertilization by insects. In cold, stormy, cloudy weather a geranium blossom may remain in the male stage several days before becoming female; while on a warm, sunny day, when plenty of insects are flying, the change sometimes takes place in a few hours. Among others, the common sulphur or puddle butterfly, that sits in swarms on muddy roads and makes the clover fields gay with its bright little wings, pilfers nectar from the geranium without bringing its long tongue in contact with the pollen. Neither do the smaller bees and flies which alight on the petals necessarily come in contact with the anthers and stigmas. Doubtless the larger bees are the flowers’ true benefactors.

The so-called geraniums in cultivation are pelargoniums, strictly speaking.

Herb Robert; Red Robin; Red Shanks; Dragon’s Blood

_Geranium Robertianum_

_Flowers_--Purplish rose, about 1/2 in. across, borne chiefly in pairs on slender peduncles. Five sepals and petals; stamens 10; pistil with 5 styles. _Stem_: Weak, slender, much branched, forked, and spreading, slightly hairy, 6 to 18 in. high. _Leaves_: Strongly scented, opposite, thin, of 3 divisions, much subdivided and cleft. _Fruit_: Capsular, elastic, the beak 1 in. long, awn-pointed.

_Preferred Habitat_--Rocky, moist woods and shady roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--May-October.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to Pennsylvania, and westward to Missouri.

Who was the Robert for whom this his “holy herb” was named? Many suppose that he was St. Robert, a Benedictine monk, to whom the twenty-ninth of April--the day the plant comes into flower in Europe--is dedicated. Others assert that Robert Duke of Normandy, for whom the “Ortus Sanitatis,” a standard medical guide for some hundred of years, was written, is the man honored; and since there is now no way of deciding the mooted question, we may take our choice.

Only when the stems are young are they green; later the plant well earns the name of Red Shanks, and when its leaves show crimson stains, of Dragon’s Blood.

At any time the herb gives forth a disagreeable odor, but especially when its leaves and stem have been crushed until they emit a resinous secretion once an alleged cure for the plague.

MILKWORT FAMILY _(Polygalaceae)_

Fringed Milkwort or Polygala; Flowering Wintergreen; Gay Wings

_Polygala paucifolia_

_Flowers_--Purplish rose, rarely white, showy, over 1/2 in. long, from 1 to 4 on short, slender peduncles from among upper leaves. Calyx of 5 unequal sepals, of which 2 are wing-like and highly colored like petals. Corolla irregular, its crest finely fringed; 6 stamens; 1 pistil. Also pale, pouch-like, cleistogamous flowers underground. _Stem_: Prostrate, 6 to 15 in. long, slender, from creeping rootstock, sending up flowering shoots 4 to 7 in. high. _Leaves_: Clustered at summit, oblong, or pointed egg-shaped, 1-1/2 in. long or less; those on lower part of shoots scale-like.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist, rich woods, pine lands, light soil.

_Flowering Season_--May-July.

_Distribution_--Northern Canada, southward and westward to Georgia and Illinois.

Gay companies of these charming, bright little blossoms hidden away in the woods suggest a swarm of tiny mauve butterflies that have settled among the wintergreen leaves. Unlike the common milkwort and many of its kin that grow in clover-like heads, each one of the gay wings has beauty enough to stand alone. Its oddity of structure, its lovely color and enticing fringe, lead one to suspect it of extraordinary desire to woo some insect that will carry its pollen from blossom to blossom and so enable the plant to produce cross-fertilized seed to counteract the evil tendencies resulting from the more prolific self-fertilized cleistogamous flowers buried in the ground below.

Common, Field, or Purple Milkwort; Purple Polygala

_Polygala sanguinea (P. viridescens)_

_Flowers_--Numerous, very small, variable; bright magenta pink, or almost red, or pale to whiteness, or greenish, clustered in a globular clover-like head, gradually lengthening to a cylindric spike. _Stem_: 6 to 15 in. high, smooth, branched above, leafy. _Leaves_: Alternate, narrowly oblong, entire.

_Preferred Habitat_--Fields and meadows, moist or sandy.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Southern Canada to North Carolina, westward to the Mississippi.

When these bright clover-like heads and the inconspicuous greenish ones grow together, the difference between them is so striking it is no wonder Linnaeus thought they were borne by two distinct species, _Sanguinea_ and _viridescens_, whereas they are now known to be merely two forms of the same flower. At first glance one might mistake the irregular little blossom for a member of the pea family; two of the five very unequal sepals--not petals--are colored wings. These bright-hued calyx-parts overlap around the flower-head like tiles on a roof. Within each pair of wings are three petals united into a tube, split on the back, to expose the vital organs to contact with the bee, the milkwort’s best friend.

Plants of this genus were named polygala, the Greek for much milk, not because they have milky juice--for it is bitter and clear--but because feeding on them is supposed to increase the flow of cattle’s milk.

TOUCH-ME-NOT FAMILY _(Balsaminaceae)_

Jewel-weed; Spotted Touch-me-not; Silver Cap; Wild Balsam; Lady’s Eardrops; Snap Weed; Wild Lady’s Slipper

_Impatiens biflora (I. fulva)_

_Flowers_--Orange yellow, spotted with reddish brown, irregular, 1 in. long or less, horizontal, 2 to 4 pendent by slender footstalks on a long peduncle from leaf axils. Sepals, 3, colored; 1 large, sac-shaped, contracted into a slender incurved spur and 2-toothed at apex; 2 other sepals small. Petals, 3; 2 of them 2-cleft into dissimilar lobes; 5 short stamens, 1 pistil. _Stem_: 2 to 5 ft. high, smooth, branched, colored, succulent. _Leaves_: Alternate, thin, pale beneath, ovate coarsely toothed, petioled. _Fruit_: An oblong capsule, its 5 valves opening elastically to expel the seeds.

_Preferred Habitat_--Beside streams, ponds, ditches; moist ground.

_Flowering Season_--July-October.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to Oregon, south to Missouri and Florida.

These exquisite, bright flowers, hanging at a horizontal, like jewels from a lady’s ear, may be responsible for the plant’s folk-name; but whoever is abroad early on a dewy morning, or after a shower, and finds notched edges of the drooping leaves hung with scintillating gems, dancing, sparkling in the sunshine, sees still another reason for naming this the Jewel-weed. In a brook, pond, spring, or wayside trough, which can never be far from its haunts, dip a spray of the plant to transform the leaves into glistening silver. They shed water much as the nasturtiums do.

When the tiny ruby-throated humming bird flashes northward out of the tropics to spend the summer, where can he hope to find nectar so deeply secreted that not even the long-tongued bumblebee may rob him of it all? Beyond the bird’s bill his tongue can be run out and around curves no other creature can reach. Now the early-blooming columbine, its slender cornucopias brimming with sweets, welcomes the messenger whose needle-like bill will carry pollen from flower to flower; presently the coral honeysuckle and the scarlet painted-cup attract him by wearing his favorite color; next the jewel-weed hangs horns of plenty to lure his eye; and the trumpet vine and cardinal flower continue to feed him successively in Nature’s garden; albeit cannas, nasturtiums, salvia, gladioli, and such deep, irregular showy flowers in men’s flower beds sometimes lure him away.

Familiar as we may be with the nervous little seed-pods of the touch-me-not, which children ever love to pop and see the seeds fly, as they do from balsam pods in grandmother’s garden, they still startle with the suddenness of their volley. Touch the delicate hair-trigger at the end of a capsule, and the lightning response of the flying seeds makes one jump. They sometimes land four feet away. At this rate of progress a year, and with the other odds against which all plants have to contend, how many generations must it take to fringe even one mill pond with jewel-weed; yet this is rapid transit indeed compared with many of Nature’s processes. The plant is a conspicuous sufferer from the dodder.

* * * * *

The Pale Touch-me-not _(I. aurea)_--_I. pallida_ of Gray--most abundant northward, a larger, stouter species found in similar situations, but with paler yellow flowers only sparingly dotted if at all, has its broader sac-shaped sepal abruptly contracted into a short, notched, but not incurved spur. It shares its sister’s popular names.

BUCKTHORN FAMILY _(Rhamnaceae)_

New Jersey Tea; Wild Snowball; Red-root

_Ceanothus americanus_

_Flowers_--Small, white, on white pedicels, crowded in dense, oblong, terminal clusters. Calyx white, hemispheric, 5-lobed; 5 petals, hooded and long-clawed; 5 stamens with long filaments; style short, 3-cleft. _Stems:_ Shrubby, 1 to 3 ft. high, usually several, from a deep reddish root. _Leaves:_ Alternate, ovate-oblong, acute at tip, finely saw-edged, 3-nerved, on short petioles.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry, open woods and thickets.

_Flowering Season_--May-July.

_Distribution_--Ontario south and west to the Gulf of Mexico.

Light, feathery clusters of white little flowers crowded on the twigs of this low shrub interested thrifty colonial housewives of Revolutionary days not at all; the tender, young, rusty, downy leaves were what they sought to dry as a substitute for imported tea. Doubtless the thought that they were thereby evading George the Third’s tax and brewing patriotism in every kettleful added a sweetness to the home-made beverage that sugar itself could not impart. The American troops were glad enough to use New Jersey Tea throughout the war. A nankeen or cinnamon-colored dye is made from the reddish root.

MALLOW FAMILY _(Malvaceae)_

Swamp Rose-mallow; Mallow Rose

_Hibiscus Moscheutos_

_Flowers_--Very large, clear rose pink, sometimes white, often with crimson centre, 4 to 7 in. across, solitary, or clustered on peduncles at summit of stems. Calyx 5-cleft, subtended by numerous narrow bractlets; 5 large, veined petals; stamens united into a valvular column bearing anthers on the outside for much of its length; 1 pistil partly enclosed in the column, and with 5 button-tipped stigmatic branches above. _Stem_: 4 to 7 ft. tall, stout, from perennial root. _Leaves_: 3 to 7 in. long, tapering, pointed, egg-shaped, densely white, downy beneath; lower leaves, or sometimes all, lobed at middle.

_Preferred Habitat_--Brackish marshes, riversides, lake shores, saline situations.

_Flowering Season_--August-September.

_Distribution_--Massachusetts to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Louisiana; found locally in the interior, but chiefly along Atlantic seaboard.

Stately ranks of these magnificent flowers, growing among the tall sedges and “cat-tails” of the marshes, make the most insensate traveller exclaim at their amazing loveliness. To reach them one must don rubber boots and risk sudden seats in the slippery ooze; nevertheless, with spade in hand to give one support, it is well worth while to seek them out and dig up some roots to transplant to the garden. Here, strange to say, without salt soil or more water than the average garden receives from showers and hose, this handsomest of our wild flowers soon makes itself delightfully at home under cultivation. Such good, deep earth, well enriched and moistened, as the hollyhock thrives in, suits it perfectly. Now we have a better opportunity to note how the bees suck the five nectaries at the base of the petals, and collect the abundant pollen of the newly-opened flowers, which they perforce transfer to the five button-shaped stigmas intentionally impeding the entrance to older blossoms. Only its cousin the hollyhock, a native of China, can vie with the rose-mallow’s decorative splendor among the shrubbery; and the Rose of China (_Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis_), cultivated in greenhouses here, eclipse it in the beauty of the individual blossom. This latter flower, whose superb scarlet corolla stains black, is employed by the Chinese married women, it is said, to discolor their teeth; but in the West Indies it sinks to even greater ignominy as a dauber for blacking shoes!

Marsh Mallow (_Althaea officinalis_), a name frequently misapplied to the Swamp Rose-mallow, is properly given to a much smaller pink flower, measuring only an inch and a half across at the most, and a far rarer one, being a naturalized immigrant from Europe found only in the salt marshes from the Massachusetts coast to New York. It is also known as Wymote. This is a bushy, leafy plant, two to four feet high, and covered with velvety down as a protection against the clogging of its pores by the moisture arising from its wet retreats. Plants that live in swamps must “perspire” freely and keep their pores open. From the Marsh Mallow’s thick roots the mucilage used in confectionery is obtained, a soothing demulcent long esteemed in medicine.

ST. JOHN’S-WORT FAMILY _(Hypericaceae)_

Common St. John’s-wort

_Hypericum perforatum_

_Flowers_--Bright yellow, 1 in. across or less, several or many in terminal clusters. Calyx of 5 lance-shaped sepals; 5 petals dotted with black; numerous stamens in 3 sets; 3 styles. _Stem_: 1 to 2 ft. high, erect, much branched. _Leaves_: Small, opposite, oblong, more or less black-dotted.

_Preferred Habitat_--Fields, waste lands, roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Throughout our area, except the extreme North; Europe and Asia.

“Gathered upon a Friday, in the hour of Jupiter when he comes to his operation, so gathered, or borne, or hung upon the neck, it mightily helps to drive away all phantastical spirits.” These are the blossoms which have been hung in the windows of European peasants for ages on St. John’s eve, to avert the evil eye and the spells of the spirits of darkness. “Devil chaser” its Italian name signifies. To cure demoniacs, to ward off destruction by lightning, to reveal the presence of witches, and to expose their nefarious practices, are some of the virtues ascribed to this plant, which superstitious farmers have spared from the scythe and encouraged to grow near their houses until it has become, even in this land of liberty, a troublesome weed at times. “The flower gets its name,” says F. Schuyler Mathews, “from the superstition that on St. John’s day, the 24th of June, the dew which fell on the plant the evening before was efficacious in preserving the eyes from disease. So the plant was collected, dipped in oil, and thus transformed into a balm for every wound.” Here it is a naturalized immigrant, not a native. A blooming plant, usually with many sterile shoots about its base, has an unkempt, untidy look; the seed capsules and the brown petals of withered flowers remaining among the bright yellow buds through a long season.

The Shrubby St. John’s-wort (_H. prolificum_) bears yellow blossoms, about half an inch across, which are provided with stamens so numerous, the many flowered terminal clusters have a soft, feathery effect. In the axils of the oblong, opposite leaves are tufts of smaller ones, the stout stems being often concealed under a wealth of foliage. Sandy or rocky places from New Jersey southward best suit this low, dense, diffusely branched shrub which blooms prolifically from July to September.

Farther north, and westward to Iowa, the Great or Giant St. John’s-wort (_H. Ascyron_) brightens the banks of streams at midsummer with large blossoms, each on a long footstalk in a few-flowered cluster.

ROCKROSE FAMILY _(Cistaceae)_

Long-branched Frost-weed; Frost-flower; Frost-wort; Canadian Rockrose

_Helianthemum canadense_

_Flowers_--Solitary, or rarely 2; about 1 in. across, 5-parted, with showy yellow petals; the 5 unequal sepals hairy. Also abundant small flowers lacking petals, produced from the axils later. _Stem:_ Erect, 3 in. to 2 ft. high; at first simple, later with elongated branches. _Leaves:_ Alternate, oblong, almost seated on stem.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry fields, sandy or rocky soil.

_Flowering Season_--Petal-bearing flowers, May-July.

_Distribution_--New England to the Carolinas, westward to Wisconsin and Kentucky.

When the stubble in the dry fields is white some cold November morning, comparatively few notice the ice crystals, like specks of glistening quartz, at the base of the stems of this plant. The similar Hoary Frost-weed (_H. majus_), whose showy flowers appear in clusters at the hoary stem’s summit in June and July, also bears them. Often this ice formation assumes exquisite feathery, whimsical forms, bursting the bark asunder where an astonishing quantity of sap gushes forth and freezes. Indeed, so much sap sometimes goes to the making of this crystal flower, that it would seem as if an extra reservoir in the soil must pump some up to supply it with its large fantastic corolla.

VIOLET FAMILY _(Violaceae)_

Blue and Purple Violets

Lacking perfume only to be a perfectly satisfying flower, the Common Purple, Meadow, or Hooded Blue Violet (_V. cucullata_) has nevertheless established itself in the hearts of the people from the Arctic to the Gulf as no sweet-scented, showy, hothouse exotic has ever done. Royal in color as in lavish profusion, it blossoms everywhere--in woods, waysides, meadows, and marshes, but always in finer form in cool, shady dells; with longer flowering scapes in meadow bogs; and with longer leaves than wide in swampy woodlands. The heart-shaped, saw-edged leaves, folded toward the centre when newly put forth, and the five-petalled, bluish-purple, golden-hearted blossom are too familiar for more detailed description. From the three-cornered stars of the elastic capsules, the seeds are scattered abroad.

In shale and sandy soil, even in the gravel of hillsides, one finds the narrowly divided, finely cut leaves and the bicolored beardless blossom of the Bird’s-foot Violet (_V. pedata_), pale bluish purple on the lower petals, dark purple on one or two upper ones, and with a heart of gold. The large, velvety, pansy-like blossom and the unusual foliage which rises in rather dense tufts are sufficient to distinguish the plant from its numerous kin. This species produces no cleistogamous or blind flowers. Frequently the Bird’s-foot Violet blooms a second time, in autumn, a delightful eccentricity of this family. The spur of its lower petal is long and very slender, and, as might be expected, the longest-tongued bees and butterflies are its most frequent visitors. These receive the pollen on the base of the proboscis.

In course of time the lovely English, March, or Sweet Violet _(V. odorata)_, which has escaped from gardens, and which is now rapidly increasing with the help of seed and runners on the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts, may be established among our wild flowers. No blossom figures so prominently in European literature. In France, it has even entered the political field since Napoleon’s day. Yale University has adopted the violet for its own especial flower, although it is the corn-flower, or bachelor’s button _(Centaurea cyanus)_ that is the true Yale blue. Sprengel, who made a most elaborate study of the violet, condensed the result of his research into the following questions and answers, which are given here because much that he says applies to our own native species, which have been too little studied in the modern scientific spirit:

“1. Why is the flower situated on a long stalk which is upright, but curved downward at the free end? In order that it may hang down; which, firstly, prevents rain from obtaining access to the nectar; and, secondly, places the stamens in such a position that the pollen falls into the open space between the pistil and the free ends of the stamens. If the flower were upright, the pollen would fall into the space between the base of the stamen and the base of the pistil, and would not come in contact with the bee.

“2. Why does the pollen differ from that of most other insect-fertilized flowers? In most of such flowers the insects themselves remove the pollen from the anthers, and it is therefore important that the pollen should not easily be detached and carried away by the wind. In the present case, on the contrary, it is desirable that it should be looser and drier, so that it may easily fall into the space between the stamens and the pistil. If it remained attached to the anther, it would not be touched by the bee, and the flower would remain unfertilized.

“3. Why is the base of the style so thin? In order that the bee may be more easily able to bend the style.

“4. Why is the base of the style bent? For the same reason. The result of the curvature is that the pistil is much more easily bent than would be the case if the style were straight.

“5. Finally, why does the membranous termination of the upper filament overlap the corresponding portions of the two middle stamens? Because this enables the bee to move the pistil and thereby to set free the pollen more easily than would be the case under the reverse arrangement.”

Yellow Violets

Fine hairs on the erect, leafy, usually single stem of the Downy Yellow Violet _(V. pubescens)_, whose dark veined, bright yellow petals gleam in dry woods in April and May, easily distinguish it from the Smooth Yellow Violet _(V. scabriuscula)_, formerly considered a mere variety in spite of its being an earlier bloomer, a lover of moisture, and well equipped with basal leaves at flowering time, which the downy species is not. Moreover, it bears a paler blossom, more coarsely dentate leaves, often decidedly taper-pointed, and usually several stems together.

Bryant, whose botanical lore did not always keep step with his Muse, wrote of the Yellow Violet as the first spring flower, because he found it “by the snowbank’s edges cold,” one April day, when the hepaticas about his home at Roslyn, Long Island, had doubtless been in bloom a month.

“Of all her train the hands of Spring
First plant thee in the watery mould,”

he wrote, regardless of the fact that the round-leaved violet’s preferences are for dry, wooded, or rocky hillsides. Mueller believed that all violets were originally yellow, not white, after they developed from the green stage.

White Violets

Three small-flowered, white, purple-veined, and almost beardless species which prefer to dwell in moist meadows, damp, mossy places, and along the borders of streams, are the Lance-leaved Violet _(V. lanceolata)_, the Primrose-leaved Violet _(V. primulifolia)_, and the Sweet White Violet _(V. blanda)_, whose leaves show successive gradations from the narrow, tapering, smooth, long-petioled blades of the first to the oval form of the second and the almost circular, cordate leaf of the delicately fragrant, little white _blanda_, the dearest violet of all. Inasmuch as these are short-spurred species, requiring no effort for bees to drain their nectaries, no footholds in the form of beards on the side petals are provided for them. The purple veinings show the stupidest visitor the path to the sweets.

EVENING PRIMROSE FAMILY _(Onagraceae)_

Great or Spiked Willow-herb; Fire-weed

_Epilobium angustifolium (Chamaenerion angustifolium)_

_Flowers_--Magenta or pink, sometimes pale, or rarely white, more or less than 1 in. across, in an elongated, terminal, spike-like raceme. Calyx tubular, narrow, in 4 segments; 4 rounded, spreading petals; 8 stamens; 1 pistil, hairy at base; the stigma 4-lobed. _Stem:_ 2 to 8 ft. high, simple, smooth, leafy. _Leaves:_ Narrow, tapering, willow-like, 2 to 6 in. long. _Fruit:_ A slender, curved, violet-tinted capsule, from 2 to 3 in. long, containing numerous seeds attached to tufts of fluffy, white, silky threads.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry soil, fields, roadsides, especially in burnt-over districts.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--From Atlantic to Pacific, with few interruptions; British Possessions and United States southward to the Carolinas and Arizona. Also Europe and Asia.

Spikes of these beautiful brilliant flowers towering upward above dry soil, particularly where the woodsman’s axe and forest fires have devastated the landscape, illustrate Nature’s abhorrence of ugliness. Other kindly plants have earned the name of fireweed, but none so quickly beautifies the blackened clearings of the pioneer, nor blossoms over the charred trail in the wake of the locomotive. Whole mountainsides in Alaska are dyed crimson with it. Beginning at the bottom of the long spike, the flowers open in slow succession upward throughout the summer, leaving behind the attractive seed-vessels, which, splitting lengthwise in September, send adrift white silky tufts attached to seeds that will one day cover far distant wastes with beauty. Almost perfect rosettes, made by the young plants, are met with on one’s winter walks.

Evening Primrose; Night Willow-herb

_Oenothera biennis_

_Flowers_--Yellow, fragrant, opening at evening, 1 to 2 in. across, borne in terminal leafy-bracted spikes. Calyx tube slender, elongated, gradually enlarged at throat, the 4-pointed lobes bent backward; corolla of 4 spreading petals; 8 stamens; 1 pistil; the stigma 4-cleft. _Stem:_ Erect, wand-like, or branched, 1 to 5 ft. tall, rarely higher, leafy. _Leaves:_ Alternate, lance-shaped, mostly seated on stem, entire, or obscurely toothed.

_Preferred Habitat_--Roadsides, dry fields, thickets, fence-corners.

_Flowering Season_--June-October.

_Distribution_--Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, west to the Rocky Mountains.

Like a ball-room beauty, the Evening Primrose has a jaded, bedraggled appearance by day when we meet it by the dusty roadside, its erect buds, fading flowers from last night’s revelry, wilted ones of previous dissipations, and hairy oblong capsules, all crowded together among the willow-like leaves at the top of the rank-growing plant. But at sunset a bud begins to expand its delicate petals slowly, timidly--not suddenly and with a pop, as the evening primrose of the garden does.

Now, its fragrance, that has been only faintly perceptible during the day, becomes increasingly powerful. Why these blandishments at such an hour? Because at dusk, when sphinx moths, large and small, begin to fly, the primrose’s special benefactors are abroad. All these moths, whose length of tongue has kept pace with the development of the tubes of certain white and yellow flowers dependent on their ministrations, find such glowing like miniature moons for their special benefit, when blossoms of other hues have melted into the deepening darkness. If such have fragrance, they prepare to shed it now. Nectar is secreted in tubes so deep and slender that none but the moths’ long tongues can drain the last drop. An exquisite, little, rose-pink twilight flyer, his wings bordered with yellow, flutters in ecstasy above the Evening Primrose’s freshly opened flowers, transferring in his rapid flight some of their abundant, sticky pollen that hangs like a necklace from the outstretched filaments. By day one may occasionally find a little fellow asleep in a wilted blossom, which serves him as a tent, under whose flaps the brightest bird eye rarely detects a dinner. After a single night’s dissipation the corolla wilts, hangs a while, then drops from the maturing capsule as if severed with a sharp knife. Few flowers, sometimes only one opens on a spike on a given evening--a plan to increase the chances of cross-fertilization between distinct plants; but there is a very long succession of bloom. If a flower has not been pollenized during the night it remains open a while in the morning. Bumblebees now hurry in, and an occasional humming bird takes a sip of nectar. Toward the end of summer, when so much seed has been set that the flower can afford to be generous, it distinctly changes its habit and keeps open house all day.

GINSENG FAMILY (_Araliaceae_)

Spikenard; Indian Root; Spignet

_Aralia racemosa_

_Flowers_--Greenish white, small, 5-parted, mostly imperfect, in a drooping compound raceme of rounded clusters. _Stem:_ 3 to 6 ft. high, branches spreading. _Roots:_ Large, thick, fragrant. _Leaves:_ Compounded of heart-shaped, sharply tapering, saw-edged leaflets from 2 to 5 in. long, often downy underneath. Lower leaves often enormous. _Fruit:_ Dark reddish-brown berries.

_Preferred Habitat_--Rich open woods, wayside thickets, light soil.

_Flowering Season_--July-August.

_Distribution_--New Brunswick to Georgia, west to the Mississippi.

A striking, decorative plant, once much sought after for its medicinal virtues--still another herb with which old women delight to dose their victims for any malady from a cold to a carbuncle. Quite a different plant, but a relative, is the one with hairy spike-like shoots from its fragrant roots, from which the “very precious” ointment poured by Mary upon the Saviour’s head was made. The nard, an Indian product from that plant, which is still found growing on the distant Himalayas, could then be imported into Palestine only by the rich.

How certain of the winter birds gormandize on the resinous, spicy little berries! A flock of juncos will strip the fruit from every spikenard in the neighborhood the first day it arrives from the North.

It should be understood that the Wild Spikenard, or False Solomon’s Seal, has not the remotest connection with this tribe of plants.

The Wild or False Sarsaparilla (_A. nudicaulis_), so common in woods, hillsides, and thickets, shelters its three spreading umbels of greenish-white flowers in May and June beneath a canopy formed by a large, solitary, compound leaf. The aromatic roots, which run horizontally sometimes three feet or more through the soil, send up a very short, smooth proper stem which lifts a tall leafstalk and a shorter, naked flower-stalk. The single large leaf, of exquisite bronzy tints when young, is compounded of from three to five oval, toothed leaflets on each of its three divisions.

While the true sarsaparilla of medicine should come from a quite different herb that flourishes in Mexico and South America, this one furnishes a commercial substitute enormously used as a blood purifier and cooling summer drink. Burrowing rabbits delight to nibble the long, slender, fragrant roots.

PARSLEY FAMILY (_Umbelliferae_)

Wild or Field Parsnip; Madnep; Tank

_Pastinaca sativa_

_Flowers_--Dull or greenish yellow, small, without involucre or involucels; borne in 7 to 15 rayed umbels, 2 to 6 in. across. _Stem:_ 2 to 5 ft. tall, stout, smooth, branching, grooved, from a long, conic, fleshy, strong-scented root. _Leaves:_ Compounded (pinnately), of several pairs of oval, lobed, or cut sharply toothed leaflets; the petioled lower leaves often 1-1/2 ft. long.

_Preferred Habitat_--Waste places, roadsides, fields.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Common throughout nearly all parts of the United States and Canada. Europe.

Men are not the only creatures who feed upon such of the umbel-bearing plants as are innocent--parsnips, celery, parsley, carrots, caraway, and fennel, among others; and even those which contain properties that are poisonous to highly organized men and beasts, afford harmless food for insects. Pliny says that parsnips, which were cultivated beyond the Rhine in the days of Tiberius, were brought to Rome annually to please the emperor’s exacting palate, yet this same plant, which has overrun two continents, in its wild state (when its leaves are a paler yellowish green than under cultivation) often proves poisonous. A strongly acrid juice in the very tough stem causes intelligent cattle to let it alone--precisely the object desired.

Wild Carrot; Queen Anne’s Lace; Bird’s-nest

_Daucus Carota_

_Flowers_--Small, of unequal sizes (polygamous), white, rarely pinkish gray, 5-parted, in a compound, flat, circular, umbel, the central floret often dark crimson; the umbels very concave in fruit. An involucre of narrow, pinnately cut bracts. _Stem:_ 1 to 3 ft. high, with stiff hairs; from a deep, fleshy, conic root. _Leaves:_ Cut into fine, fringy divisions; upper ones smaller and less dissected.

_Preferred Habitat_--Waste lands, fields, roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Eastern half of United States and Canada. Europe and Asia.

A pest to farmers, a joy to the flower-lover, and a welcome signal for refreshment to hosts of flies, beetles, bees, and wasps, especially to the paper-nest builders, the sprangly wild carrot lifts its fringy foliage and exquisite lacy blossoms above the dry soil of three continents. From Europe it has come to spread its delicate wheels over our summer landscape, until whole fields are whitened by them east of the Mississippi. Having proved fittest in the struggle for survival in the fiercer competition of plants in the over-cultivated Old World, it takes its course of empire westward year by year, finding most favorable conditions for colonizing in our vast, uncultivated area; and the less aggressive, native occupants of our soil are only too readily crowded out. Would that the advocates of unrestricted immigration of foreign peasants studied the parallel examples among floral invaders!

Still another fiction is that the cultivated carrot, introduced to England by the Dutch in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, was derived from this wild species. Miller, the celebrated English botanist and gardener, among many others, has disproved this statement by utterly failing again and again to produce an edible vegetable from this wild root. When cultivation of the garden carrot lapses for a few generations, it reverts to the ancestral type--a species quite distinct from _Daucus Carota_.

DOGWOOD FAMILY _(Cornaceae)_

Flowering Dogwood

_Cornus florida_

_Flowers_--(Apparently) large, white or pinkish, the four conspicuous parts simulating petals, notched at the top, being really bracts of an involucre below the true flowers, clustered in the centre, which are very small, greenish yellow, 4-parted, perfect. _Stem:_ A large shrub or small tree, wood hard, bark rough. _Leaves:_ Opposite oval, entire-edged, petioled, paler underneath. _Fruit:_ Clusters of egg-shaped scarlet berries, tipped with the persistent calyx.

_Preferred Habitat_--Woodlands, rocky thickets, wooded roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--April-June.

_Distribution_--Maine to Florida, west to Ontario and Texas.

Has Nature’s garden a more decorative ornament than the Flowering Dogwood, whose spreading flattened branches whiten the woodland borders in May as if an untimely snowstorm had come down upon them, and in autumn paint the landscape with glorious crimson, scarlet, and gold, dulled by comparison only with the clusters of vivid red berries among the foliage? Little wonder that nurserymen sell enormous numbers of these small trees to be planted on lawns. The horrors of pompous monuments, urns, busts, shafts, angels, lambs, and long-drawn-out eulogies in stone in many a cemetery are mercifully concealed in part by these boughs, laden with blossoms of heavenly purity.

“Let dead names be eternized in dead stone,
But living names by living shafts be known.
Plant thou a tree whose leaves shall sing
Thy deeds and thee each fresh, recurrent spring.”

When the Massachusetts farmers think they hear the first brown thrasher in April advising them to plant their Indian corn, reassuringly calling, “Drop it, drop it--cover it up, cover it up--pull it up, pull it up, pull it up” (Thoreau), they look to the dogwood flowers to confirm the thrasher’s advice before taking it.

* * * * *

The Low or Dwarf Cornel, or Bunchberry _(C. canadensis)_, whose scaly stem does its best to attain a height of nine inches, bears a whorl of from four to six oval, pointed, smooth leaves at the summit. From the midst of this whorl comes a cluster of minute greenish florets, encircled by four to six large, showy, white petal-like bracts, quite like a small edition of the Flowering Dogwood blossom. Tight clusters of round berries, that are lifted upward on a gradually lengthened peduncle after the flowers fade (May-July), brighten with vivid touches of scarlet, shadowy, mossy places in cool, rich woods, where the dwarf cornels, with the partridge vine, twin flower, gold thread, and fern, form the most charming of carpets.

Even more abundant is the Silky Cornel, Kinnikinnick, or Swamp Dogwood (_C. Amomum_) found in low, wet ground, and beside streams, from Nebraska to the Atlantic Ocean, south to Florida and north to New Brunswick. Its dull, reddish twigs, oval or oblong leaves, rounded at the base, but tapering to a point at the apex, and usually silky-downy with fine, brownish hairs underneath (to prevent the pores from clogging with vapors arising from its damp habitat); its rather compact, flat clusters of white flowers from May to July, and its bluish berries are its distinguishing features. The Indians loved to smoke its bark for its alleged tonic effect.

HEATH FAMILY (_Ericaceae_)

Pipsissewa; Prince’s Pine

_Chimaphila umbellata_

_Flowers_--Flesh-colored, or pinkish, fragrant, waxy, usually with deep pink ring around centre, and the anthers colored; about 1/2 in. across; several flowers in loose, terminal cluster. Calyx 5-cleft; corolla of 5 concave, rounded, spreading petals; 10 stamens, the filaments hairy; style short, conical, with a round stigma. _Stem:_ Trailing far along ground, creeping, or partly subterranean, sending up sterile and flowering branches 3 to 10 in. high. _Leaves:_ Opposite or in whorls, evergreen, bright, shining, spatulate to lance-shaped, sharply saw-edged.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry woods, sandy leaf mould.

_Flowering Season_--June-August.

_Distribution_--British Possessions and the United States north of Georgia from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Also Mexico, Europe, and Asia.

A lover of winter indeed (_cheima_ = winter and _phileo_ = to love) is the Prince’s Pine, whose beautiful dark leaves keep their color and gloss in spite of snow and intense cold. A few yards of the trailing stem, easily ripped from the light soil of its woodland home, make a charming indoor decoration, especially when the little brown seed-cases remain. Few flowers are more suggestive of the woods than these shy, dainty, deliciously fragrant little blossoms.

* * * * *

The Spotted Wintergreen, or Pipsissewa (_C. maculata_), closely resembles the Prince’s Pine, except that its slightly larger white or pinkish flowers lack the deep pink ring; and the lance-shaped leaves, with rather distant saw-teeth, are beautifully mottled with white along the veins. When we see short-lipped bees and flies about these flowers, we may be sure their pollen-covered mouths come in contact with the moist stigma on the summit of the little top-shaped style, and so effect cross-fertilization.

Indian Pipe; Ice-plant; Ghost-flower; Corpse-plant

_Monotropa uniflora_

_Flowers_--Solitary, smooth, waxy, white (rarely pink), oblong bell-shaped, nodding from the tip of a fleshy, white, scaly scape 4 to 10 in. tall. Calyx of 2 to 4 early-falling white sepals; 4 or 5 oblong, scale-like petals; 8 or 10 tawny, hairy stamens; a 5-celled, egg-shaped ovary, narrowed into the short, thick style. _Leaves:_ None. _Roots:_ A mass of brittle fibres, from which usually a cluster of several white scapes arises. _Fruit:_ A 5-valved, many-seeded, erect capsule.

_Preferred Habitat_--Heavily shaded, moist, rich woods, especially under oak and pine trees.

_Flowering Season_--June-August.

_Distribution_--Almost throughout temperate North America.

Colorless in every part, waxy, cold, and clammy, Indian pipes rise like a company of wraiths in the dim forest that suits them well. Ghoulish parasites, uncanny saprophytes, for their matted roots prey either on the juices of living plants or on the decaying matter of dead ones, how weirdly beautiful and decorative they are! The strange plant grows also in Japan, and one can readily imagine how fascinated the native artists must be by its chaste charms.

Yet to one who can read the faces of flowers, as it were, it stands a branded sinner. Doubtless its ancestors were industrious, honest creatures, seeking their food in the soil, and digesting it with the help of leaves filled with good green matter (chlorophyll) on which virtuous vegetable life depends; but some ancestral knave elected to live by piracy, to drain the already digested food of its neighbors; so the Indian Pipe gradually lost the use of parts for which it has need no longer, until we find it to-day without color and its leaves degenerated into mere scaly bracts. Nature had manifold ways of illustrating the parable of the ten pieces of money. Spiritual law is natural law: “From him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away.” Among plants as among souls, there are all degrees of backsliders. The foxglove, which is guilty of only sly, petty larceny, wears not the equivalent of the striped suit and the shaved head; nor does the mistletoe, which steals crude food from the tree, but still digests it itself, and is therefore only a dingy yellowish green. Such plants, however, as the broom-rape, Pine Sap, beech-drops, the Indian Pipe, and the dodder--which marks the lowest stage of degradation of them all--appear among their race branded with the mark of crime as surely as was Cain.